Bulgarian Press Review, August 28, 2009

Press Review
Sofia, August 28 (BTA)


FOREIGN POLICY

"Borissov, Putin Arrange Meeting by Phone," reads a front-page headline in "Troud". "24 Chassa" headlines its item "Borissov Invites Putin to Negotiations in Sofia." "Insiders say that the initiative came from the Bulgarian Prime Minister, and the idea was to dispel doubts that the strategic energy projects, subjected to scrutiny by the new Government, will be shelved," the paper adds.

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Ariana Hoxha-Zherka has been appointed the new Ambassador of Kosovo to Bulgaria, writes "24 Chassa", quoting "New Kosova Report". She was singled out among 20 candidates and after passing a test of Kosovo's Foreign Ministry. She is a lawyer and has been working with UNMIK for more than five years.


THE HOME SCENE

The top story of "Telegraf" is headlined "Comprehensive Audit of Stanishev." "Monitor" leads on a story entitled "Two Commissions to Probe Stanishev Cabinet". "Novinar" quotes Blue Coalition Co-Chairman and National Assembly Economic Committee Chairman Martin Dimitrov as saying that during its last week in office, the Stanishev Cabinet spent between 500 and 650 million leva. "We must check how this money was spent and on what," he argues.

"It is dangerous that GERB should limit istelf to bringing out the dirty linen," Zhivko Georgiev of BBSS Gallup International told "Novinar." He also fears attempts of making Bulgaria a police state.

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"Troud" reports on its front page that the Supervisory Board of the National Social Security Institute has approved a draft amendment to the Social Insurance Code scrapping the requirement
to quit work and stop paying social insurance in order to retire on pension. From now on, people of retirement age will have no problem retiring and continuing to work, receiving both their pension and wage.

Homework will be recognized as full-time work at the office, according to draft revisions of the Labour Code, "Standart News" reports on its front page. The idea is to enable people on employment contracts to telework, Labour and Social Policy Minister Totyu Mladenov told the daily.

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"Bulgarska Armiya" reproduces the list of positions opened to competition for 848 vacancies in the Land Forces.

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Education Minister Yordanka Fandakova says in an interview for "Sega" that "this year education will be spared changes." Career development in the teaching profession will be introduced in October, she also says.


JUSTICE AND HOME AFFAIRS

More than 79 owners and managers of companies which have systematically evaded taxation have been barred from leaving the country, "Novinar" writes in a front-page item. They have been sanctioned because of a build-up of liabilities amounting to 72.2 million leva, the National Revenue Agency (NRA) said.

The smuggling of goods has slumped after the information systems of the NRA and the customs were linked up, NRA Executive Director Krassimir Stefanov says in a "Monitor" interview.

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"Troud", "Sega" and "24 Chassa" frontpage the news that in July Diana Tsenkova, an assistant notary at the office of National Assembly Legal Affairs Committee Chair Iskra Fidossova, certified a power of attorney by which fraudsters attempted to sell a property worth millions in central Sofia. The assistant notary was misled by the fraudster who presented a false identity card bearing his photograph and the particulars of the real owner of the property. "Notaries have no way of checking whether the identity document is false," Fidossova said.

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Companies which were not admitted to the sale of Turgovishte Airport (Northeastern Bulgaria) are challenging the transaction in court, "24 Chassa" reports. They argue that the actual value of the airport is ten times the price at which it was sold. The Transport Ministry is delaying the signature of the final contract with the buyer until the legality of the procedure has been checked, Deputy Transport Minister Kamen Kichev explained. The airport was purchased for 480,000 leva by a company incorporated on July 29, 2009 under the name "Turgovishte Airport 2009" by 20-year-old Ivo Petrov. The money is for the two-story passenger terminal, a restaurant of a floor area of 845 sq m and a 216 sq m technical service building. The facility occupies 943,388 sq m near the Village of Bouhovtsi. The new owner is planning to build an aviation centre for light aircraft. "The transaction was concluded under Stanishev but is not politically motivated," says Petrov's father, a building contractor who was fifth on the Dobrich candidates list of Coalition for Bulgaria.

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"24 Chassa" reports that each owner of a luxury car, who is fined for illegal parking in front of Sofia's poshest night clubs, will be referred to the competent tax service for a check of his income. If these rich persons are suspected of having committed a crime or breaking the law, they will be handed over to the economic police as well, the Interior Ministry explained. More than 110 affluent owners of SUVs and other expensive vehicles misparked in downtown Sofia have been fined over the last two weeks, the paper writes. There are at least 2,000 parking spaces around Sofia's discos where visitors can leave their cars without interfering with traffic, "24 Chassa" found.

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"We have forgotten conventional crime, and it is stifling people," Justice Minister Margarita Popova says in a "24 Chassa" interview. "There are elaborate procedures which we will simplify. In certain hypotheticals, investigators must write a heap of pages just to initiate a criminal proceeding. Nothing revolutionary will be done, the guild will not be subjected to yet another professional stress," she notes.

"How long changes in justice will be having a zero effect and will even change things for the worse," Petya Vladimirova asks in "Dnevnik."

"Troud" has interviewed Velin Hadjolov, who recently resigned as director of the Special Actions Department at the State Agency for National Security.


ECONOMY

Sofianites are the worst paid Europeans, according to a study conducted by Swiss bank UBS, quoted by "Troud." "Bulgarians earn 17 times less than Germans," "Zemya" writes in its report. The study covers 73 capitals and large cities worldwide. Top of the list is Zurich, followed by Geneva. The net pay per hour there is 22.6 and 20.4 US dollars. For Sofia, the hourly pay is 2.6
dollars, and for Bucharest, 2.9 dollars.

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Lending and deposit rates started gradually to slide down, "Klassa" reports on its front page. The interest on new consumer credits in leva has eased by 0.07 points to 14.15 per cent, the daily adds.

"The deposit war is subsiding," "Dnevnik" comments. According to central bank figures, household deposits have decreased in July for a second month running. Some experts see this as an
indication that banks are starting to rely less on raising financial resources from depositors. Others, though, argue it is still too early to speak of a sustained tendency. The effective annual interest on household lev deposits has decreased by 16 basis points to 7.99 per cent. The interest rate on deposits in euro has dropped by 18 basis points to 6.34 per cent. The interest on company deposits in leva has declined to 6.36 per cent, whereas the interest on company deposits in euro has edged up to 4.4 per cent.

In July, over 250,000 Bulgarians travelled abroad on business, "Klassa" reports. This accounts for more than half of the trips abroad reported last month. Just 25 per cent left the country for a holiday, official statistics show. On the whole, trips abroad increased by 14.2 per cent, year on year. A large part of the business trips were to neighbouring countries.

"Bulgarians' holidays in Greece show record high," writes "Dnevnik". In July trips to Greece topped 205,000, and 51,000 of them were for the purpose of tourism. In July 2008, 126,000 visits to Greece were made, including 31,000 for tourism and holidays. Trips to Macedonia increased as well, by 30 per cent, year on year, to 6,000. Trips to Tirkey showed a 7.5 per cent rise to 14,500 in July.

Sixty per cent of Bulgaria's canned foods exports go to Russia, writes "Pari" on its front page. At present, the export has contracted by 70 per cent, and sales in Bulgaria have dropped by a third because of the high retail markups, the paper notes.

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"168 Chassa" writes on its front page that negotiations are allegedly under way between the Holy Synod and the breakaway Synod of Inokentii about the replacement of Patriarch Maxim by
Metropolitan Galaktion of Stara Zagora. According to the weekly, this was the price at which the breakaways were prepared to give up part of the 672 million euro damages awarded to them by the European Court of Human Rights. The item does not mention the sources of its information.

Under the heading "Can Christians Watch Madonna," Valeri Naidenov reasons in "24 Chassa": "Communists have no problem, but believers should cross themselves more often."


Links to some Bulgarian info websites in English:


• http://www.bta.bg/site/en/indexe.shtml
• http://www.novinite.com/index.php
• http://www.focus-fen.net/


Most discussed topics of the day – August 28, 2009

• Parliament voted on first reading amendments and supplements to the Road Traffic Act, FOCUS News Agency reporter informed. The MPs would consider the draft bill on second reading after a couple of weeks. According to former deputy Prime Minister for EU funds Adoption Meglena Plugchieva the Act does not envisage defense of expert staff of the agency, which would be provided financial resort at the amount of BGN 1.2 bln. According to her these amendments should have passed through the Council of Ministers and that it had to table the Act in the Parliament.

• Bulgaria's recently elected prime minister has announced plans to close the mega-structure Bulgarian Energy Holding that groups all big state-owned energy firms. "The Bulgarian Energy Holding will be shut down as this is a structure that nobody needs," Boyko Borisov told the morning broadcast of Nova TV channel on Friday morning. In his words the mega structure, which was set up in September last year by the previous Socialist-led government, will cease to exist "in a week or two". The holding is a sole owner joint-stock company with a 100% Bulgarian state ownership.

• Bulgaria's business sentiment index dropped 1,3 percentage points in August on a monthly basis, hitting a record-low since the beginning of the economic crisis, data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI) showed on Friday. Except for the industry sector, whose sub-index marked a slight increase over the previous month, managers from all other sectors described the business climate as bad or at least said their expectations are moderate or not optimistic. This is the first time since the financial crisis of the 90s that pessimistic expectations are so firmly entrenched in Bulgarian business, experts commented.