Bulgarian press review, December 16, 2009

Press Review
Sofia, December 16 (BTA)

HOME SCENE

"24 Chassa" quotes Prime Minister Boyko Borissov as saying that the brazen robberies of the last few days were not accidental, they happened during the most important visit in support of the government and the head of state, the visit of European Council President Herman van Rompuy, pushing the news about it to the background. Borissov praised the Interior Ministry for its work and added that "sometimes robbers have bad luck." The policemen participating in the crackdown operations will get awards.

"The services slumbered away the comeback of thugs," Appellate Court Prosecutor Rossen Dimov says in an interview for "24 Chassa." In his words, crime is rising "and we must not allow it to grow into a wave flooding us. Two things can stop the wave - legislative changes and firm enforcement of the law on the part of the Interior Ministry," Dimov says. "It is important to raise a barrier that will not allow the crimes that are harassing us to affect the society. The idea of special teams dates back to 1996 but no political force has had the will to translate it into reality. In the world, ad hoc task forces are set up when there is a problem. Obviously in Bulgaria the problem with organized crime and corruption does not consist in one or two gangs. It is a problem of the society as a whole. And in this case a special and effective structure must be established to cope with it."

"It's Time to Start Loving the Police," "Troud" writes. The daily focused on the robberies of banks, cash-desks, safe rooms that have become rather frequent of late. Sociologist Kolyo Kolev launches the idea that the criminal contingent is hard up because of the crisis just like everybody else. The processes in the criminal world are the same as in the economy; people are "downsized" or "laid off". And the "laid-offs" do not go to register at the employment offices but start working illegally on a "self-employment" basis. In other words, organized crime diminishes and non-organized crime increases. In Kolev's view, the picture of the immediate future is far from being optimistic. Thefts and robberies will become even more frequent. Police is the only force that can stop the surge in crime.

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GERB and Ataka are trying to whitewash the crisis with a referendum on the Turkish-language news in the national media, "Sega" writes. The surprising decision of the two parties was made public by no else but Prime Minister Boyko Borissov at a joint news conference with Ataka leader Volen Siderov. The idea comes from the nationalist Ataka. A referendum motion needs to be supported by 48 MPs to enter Parliament and the sign-in campaign begins today but practically the required number of MPs has already been secured. The motion will certainly pass in Parliament and within a month the head of state should fix a date for the referendum. Experts say that organizing it will cost about 18 million leva, the same amount of money that was spent on the latest general elections.

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"Borissov does not intervene in my work," National Assembly Chairperson Tsetska Tsacheva says in "Novinar." She assures the reading audiences that neither PM and GERB leader Borissov nor GERB Chairman Tsvetan Tsvetanov intervene in her job or try to influence her behaviour as chairperson of the Bulgarian Parliament. "As a member of the GERB parliamentary group I have the same rights and obligations as the other MPs of the party," Tsacheva says. "Which means that I have got to implement the programme and the policy statement of the government for European development of Bulgaria? Naturally, within this context, the position of leader and chairman of the party is obligatory for me."

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"A new opposition player is emerging in Parliament," sociologist Zhivko Georgiev says in an interview held with "Klassa." According to him, the disintegration of the Order, Lawfulness and Justice (OLJ) parliamentary group is leading to a new alignment of forces in Parliament rather than to the appearance of new political players on the scene. What happened will probably make the MPs of OLJ rather take a more clear oppositional stance than join and continue to support the majority. Georgiev expects that the OLJ will try to restore its parliamentary group by trying to amend the rules of procedure or expel Mario Tagarinski, who split from them, from Parliament. Another possibility is to attract support in the event of disintegration of some right-wing group or Ataka.

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"Sega" writes that a decade after the reform of the Bulgarian pension scheme, new radical changes in it are in preparation. This emerged on Tuesday when Labour and Social Policy Minister Totyu Mladenov said that in two months his Ministry and the social partners would propose for a public debate a new, orderly pension scheme. In his words, the reform will include two aspects" regaining people's confidence in the pension scheme and recompensing the retirees with the lowest pensions. The resources in the private pension funds, which total about 3,000 million leva, should be used to make the new scheme work, Mladenov said.

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"Sega" comments on the government's decision to approve Christmas supplements to some pensioners. The cabinet managed to divide pensioners into three - satisfied with the 25 leva they will get, unsatisfied with that amount and pensioners who will get nothing; to turn the Christmas supplements into post-Christmas ones; to offend state administration employees as they will not get any supplements; and last but not least, to top the monthly populist rating by saying that "we will take from public servants and give to pensioners." However, the same public servants will have to carry out reforms that are crucial for the survival of the government and this country, "Sega" observes. "And it is better to award or punish them based on the work done and not depending on the needs of other social groups."

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The Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) is firmly against the revisions to the Electronic Communications Act which will allow the Interior Ministry direct access to users' Internet traffic and telephone printouts. UDF leader Martin Dimitrov recalled that such access is not allowed to the services in no one of the EU member states. The requirement on Internet providers to maintain an interface allowing the Interior Ministry access to electronic data will boost enormously the price of their services, he said.

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"Kostov: It Will Be a Great Mistake for GERB to Succumb to MRF," "Troud" says in a headline. This is what Blue Coalition Co-chairman Ivan Kostov said on bTV on Tuesday. A day before, his party Democrats for Strong Bulgaria, voiced suspicions that Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Ahmed Dogan, who claimed he would retire and who did not made any assessment of the GERB performance in the government at the recent National Conference of his party, is trying to make a deal with the incumbents and prevent investigations. "Dogan is afraid that the MRF will suffer hard blows if the Interior Ministry, the State Agency for National Security and the prosecuting magistracy do their job," Kostov said.



ECONOMY

"Quoting statistics released by the National Bank of Bulgaria (BNB), "Klassa" leads with the headline "Foreign Investment Plunged More than 2.5-fold in a Year." Foreign investments in January-October 2009 totalled 2,330 million euro, down from 5,860 million euro in 2008. In October foreign investments came up to only 11.4 million euro, which is merely 2 per cent of their October 2008 amount. The crisis and the worsening of the business climate have made foreign companies postpone their Bulgarian projects.

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Heat power may increase by 7-8 per cent as of January 1, 2010, "Troud" reports. The reason is the expected rise in the price of natural gas, State Commission for Energy and Water Regulation Chairman Angel Semerdjiev said on Tuesday. A week ago Bulgargaz said that the price of gas should be raised by 17.02 per cent to 437.80 leva/1000 cu m before VAT to offset the increase in the prices of alternative oil fuels. However, now marking up the price of heating power is still possible.

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"It is bad to change the rules at the time of crisis," economist Georgi Angelov says in "24 Chassa" commenting on the proposal of the Bulgarian Industrial Association to guarantee only deposits in the banks whose interest on deposits is maximum 5 per cent. In Angelov's view, to introduce a radical change in guaranteeing deposits is imprudent as this would make people draw their money from the banks. Thus the banks will suffer from a shortage of funds and will further boost their interest rates. Angelov sees the solution to the problem in "running far away from the International Monetary Fund and advancing rapidly to the Euro zone."

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Bulgarians have become reacher during the crisis, "24 Chassa" writes quoting data of the National Statistical Institute. In October median income per member of household reached 321.41 leva, 8.85 per cent up from October 2008. At the same time, expenditures per member of household fell to 294.63 leva. During the crisis, Bulgarians spend much less on clothes, footwear, transport and communications.

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 – December 16, 2009

· Asked to comment on a proposal for a referendum on the newscasts in Turkish aired on Bulgarian National Television, President Georgi Purvanov said on Wednesday he suspected it was intended as a big trap for Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, and hopefully he would see through it.

· Bulgaria’s Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, has pledged measures to be undertaken by the police in the coming days which will lead to a crackdown on organized crime. Before Wednesday’s meeting of the Council of Ministers, Tsvetanov reiterated Tuesday’s statements of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov that the large numbers of crimes in the recent days were not accidental but were part of a wider plot against the government. “We need to hold our ground against this scenario that somebody is trying to provoke – in order to turn this kind of crimes into something normal. I am relying on the police services to do their job in order to put an end to this brazenness,” Tsvetanov said.