Press - Review
NW 01:12:01 16-03-2021
LN0126NW.101
101 - PRESS - REVIEW
Press
-
Review
Sofia, March 15 (BTA) -
COVID-19
Trud writes that the health authorities reported to Prime Minister Boyko Borissov Monday that the situation in the hospitals is under control. According to this paper, a new tightening of restrictions is likely on Thursday when the coronavirus task force is holding its weekly news briefing.
Sega writes about "the preposterous management of the new coronavirus wave" in Bulgaria and reports that on the backdrop of the alarming COVID metrics, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov has issued a new order with measures which ease instead of tighten the restrictions. Among the other eased restrictions, the Health Minister allowed circuses to reopen from April 1 at 30 per cent of their capacity (50 per cent for outdoor shows). The decision is not based on medical considerations but merely follows a meeting of the Health Minister with circus performers earlier the same day, the report says.
Monitor has an interview with the head of the Sofia Health Inspectorate, Dr Dancho Penchev. He says in the headline that Sofia can vaccinate some 10,000 people per day. He also says that the ambulance service and the emergency rooms in Sofia are under much pressure. The local pandemic metrics is monitored round-the-clock and the restrictions will be tightened, if necessary, he says. He is adamant that the growing number of new infections is a result of people behaviour and attitude to the pandemic.
POLITICS, ELECTIONS
Sega (online) writes that Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borissov continues to broaden the scope of organizations which will support his party in the April 4 general elections. On Monday, he signed partnership agreements with the United Agrarians and the Pamet [Memory] Union of Victims of Communist Repressions. In late February, he made a similar deal with an association headed by former Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) ranking member Mehmed Dikme, the story recalls. Dikme said that the agreement seeks to dispel suspicions that GERB was cooperating with MRF behind the scenes.
***
Mediapool and Dnevnik report that the extraparliamentary Democratic Bulgaria calls on the MPs to hold an extraordinary sitting and adopt legislation to scrap the limit - 35 - on the number of overseas polling stations for Bulgarians elections in countries outside the EU. The legislature is on a break ahead of the elections and will only meet on March 25 to vote on his disbanding. Being a non-parliamentary party, Democratic Bulgaria has no tools to make Parliament to meet which is why they are asking the Parliament speaker, Tsveta Karayancheva, to do so. It turned out that the limit on the number of voting sections in non-EU countries will affect the most Bulgarians who live and work in the UK, because it will be impossible for all of them who have asked to vote, to do so in the 35 voting sections.
***
Trud, Douma, Sega and Mediapool report the government decision to postpone by two years a requirement for all residential buildings to have technical passports. Douma and Trud have the story on their front page. Sega says that the matter has turned into a canvassing weapon in the election campaign. It recalls that Martin Dimitrov and Peter Slavov of Democratic Bulgaria first said that if they are elected MPs, they will move for postponing what they called "the technical passport tax" - a requirement for the residents in all buildings to take out building passports following costly assessment procedures - and define clearly cases when technical passports will need to be prepared. Hours later, GERB struck back and its Deputy Regional Development Minister and MP candidate Nikolai Nankov said in a Facebook post that they are postponing the requirement by two years. Meanwhile, Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova held an emergency news conference to make public her party's position on the explosive subject, Sega writes. Duma writes that "GERB got scared" and insists that the technical passports should be paid for by the State. According to Trud, some of the costs involved in taking out the technical passports will be covered by the government. According to this daily, it will cost up to 1,000 leva per apartment to have a technical passports prepared.
***
Telegraf has an interview with mathematics professor Mihail Konstantinov, who represents the company processing the election results (Information Services), and who says in the interview that they are perfectly organized for the upcoming elections. He expects that the pandemic will lower the turnout but does not think that having longer voting hours is a solution. Instead, the authorities should convince people that voting is safe for the voters' health, he says. He does not expect problems with the voting by quarantined people (who will cast their vote in a mobile box).
***
Trud has a two-page interview with political scientist Stoycho Stoychev about the election campaign, the behaviour of the key players, the likely coalitions after the elections and possible scenarios for the country. Also, he dwells on what he believes to the ambitions of President Rumen Radev for real power, one which he will have through setting up his own political party. He has not succeeded so far: he lacks resources, vision and maybe courage, says Stoychev.
***
A commentary in the Observer column of Sega says that with a quarter of the election campaign gone, it has become clear that all political players who can make life hard for the Prime Minister and GERB leader, don't want to do that. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is headed to self-ruin, Slavi Trifonov is visibly unbothered by the campaign and the exiled billionaire Vassil Bojkov is running in the elections on the mandate of a party whose leader used naked photos of himself in the latest mayoral elections, the author says.
***
A decision by a Sofia court, which allowed video monitoring of the ballot counting in the upcoming elections is reported by Trud, Sega, Mediapool and Dnevnik, among others. The matter was taken to the court by the Democratic Bulgaria coalition after the Central Election Commission refused to allow it as a way to ensure the transparency of the election procedure.
***
Sega, Trud and Mediapool, among other news outlets, report that former MRF deputy and leader of the DROM party Ilia Iliev has been acquitted in a vote trade case by Sofia City Court as the charges remained unproven. The court found that the matter was wrongfully investigated by police officers: Iliev had MP immunity and the case should have been handled by an investigator. As a result of that, the court could not accept the proofs collected by the investigating police officers and had to rely on witness testimony. In the court room, however, none of the witnesses would confirm that Iliev offered them money for their vote. Iliev was charged with buying votes in the Roma neighbourhood of the southern town of Yambol in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
ECONOMY
Mediapool has a detailed analysis of what the parties and coalitions have about the taxes in their election platforms. It says that all of them plan tax changes - except for GERB which promises to continue its current tax policy. "None of the proposed changes is radical and does not change dramatically a tax system which puts most of the burden on people and allows more freedom to businesses. There are no plans to change considerably the redistribution role of the government - which is insignificant in Bulgaria as compared to the other EU countries," says the analysis. GERB appears to be the only one of the more serious pretenders for the next Parliament, that does not promise to change the flat income tax. All other parties which are likely to win seats in the legislature, want to introduce a tax threashold for the lowest-income brackets. Nobody plans to change the 10 per cent corporate income tax but there are ideas for changing VAT with lower rates for foods and medicines.
The analyses says that MRF and Volya-NFSB have not yet published their platforms on their websites.
Douma has a full-page interview with economics professor and former Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development Minister Roumen Gechev, who argues against the flat tax. He says in the headline that the advanced countries donТt even have the flat tax in their school books.
***
24 Chassa carries an analysis of the election platform of the parties and coalitions under the headline "To the Right, Left Leg First". The author says that the promises of the parties are "a cocktail of strikingly similar ideas and measures" and offers a quick overview of the platforms of the key political players.
***
24 Chassa carries a full-page story on the newly adopted safety protocol for the Bulgarian tourist industry. Some key elements of the protocol: no more than two people are allows under one umbrella on the beach (exception is only allowed for bigger families); the shades should be 8 m apart, people should wear a face mask in the hotel lift; all guests suspicious for coronavirus will be isolated and a doctor called for a checkup, among others.
***
Douma and Sega report that while the working economy and the millions of leva handed out as pandemic relief are key elements in the campaign of the power holders, a report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) puts Bulgaria last in the EU with the level of support for affected businesses and workers, and the collapse in employment is the worst in Europe.
***
Telegraf leads with a story about the price of housing. It says that prices in the coastal cities are more expensive than in Sofia relative to people's incomes.
***
Trud, 24 Chassa and Sega report that the Association of Bulgarian Tour Operators and Travel Agents has issued an open letter to protest the introduction of a mandatory 10-day quarantine and subsequent PCR test for Bulgarian tourists returning from Africa. The measure was enforced by the authorities in a bid to contain the spread of the more contagious variants of the coronavirus as large numbers of Bulgarians chose to travel to Zanzibar which advertises itself as a COVID-free destination. The Association insists that Zanzibar is safe for tourists but Chief Health Inspector Angel Kounchev said Monday on bTV that four Bulgarians returning from the Tanzanian island on one of the last flights, tested positive for coronavirus.
***
Sega reports that a check by the Active Consumers Association found that powdered milk is widely used in the cow's milk sold in the Bulgarian supermarkets. Only three of 17 samples did not contain powdered milk. According to the EU regulations, additives, including powered milk, in raw cow's milk are not banned but should be indicated on the label and none of the products tested by Active Consumers had such indication. In some samples the content of powdered milk was as much as 90 per cent. The consumer-rights watchdog does not name the producers whose milk it has tested, because there is no national standard for the content of milk which is sold in supermarkets as "100% cow's milk". The report says that powdered milk is not bad for people's health but affects the quality of milk.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
A story in Mediapool quotes North Macedonia Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani as saying that no progress has been made in Sofia-Skopje relations and the differences remain. Skopje is focused on the Goodneighbourly Treaty with Bulgaria, where the two countries have some differences, but Sofia is concentrated on internal problems and the upcoming elections, he also said. The authorities in North Macedonia have said that they plan to put the matter in the freezer until after the general elections in Bulgaria, to make sure it is not used for campaign purposes, the story recalls.
SOCIETY
The Tuesday press report the nomination of Bulgaria's Maria Bakalova for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in the current Academy Awards campaign. She was nominated for her part in "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm." Most papers have the story or photos of Bakalova on their front pages.
LAW AND ORDER
24 Chassa leads with a story about Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev asking the Supreme Administrative Court whether a driver commits one or two offences if they refuse a drug or an alcohol test. The reason for the question is that the court practice on such cases is inconsistent, the paper says. It also says that over 11,000 drivers were caught driving under the influence of alcohol and another 4,000 of drugs in 2020.
***
A front-page story in Monitor says that juvenile delinquency was in decline in 2020, according to Interior Ministry figures. LN/
//
LN0126NW.101
101 - PRESS - REVIEW
Press
-
Review
Sofia, March 15 (BTA) -
COVID-19
Trud writes that the health authorities reported to Prime Minister Boyko Borissov Monday that the situation in the hospitals is under control. According to this paper, a new tightening of restrictions is likely on Thursday when the coronavirus task force is holding its weekly news briefing.
Sega writes about "the preposterous management of the new coronavirus wave" in Bulgaria and reports that on the backdrop of the alarming COVID metrics, Health Minister Kostadin Angelov has issued a new order with measures which ease instead of tighten the restrictions. Among the other eased restrictions, the Health Minister allowed circuses to reopen from April 1 at 30 per cent of their capacity (50 per cent for outdoor shows). The decision is not based on medical considerations but merely follows a meeting of the Health Minister with circus performers earlier the same day, the report says.
Monitor has an interview with the head of the Sofia Health Inspectorate, Dr Dancho Penchev. He says in the headline that Sofia can vaccinate some 10,000 people per day. He also says that the ambulance service and the emergency rooms in Sofia are under much pressure. The local pandemic metrics is monitored round-the-clock and the restrictions will be tightened, if necessary, he says. He is adamant that the growing number of new infections is a result of people behaviour and attitude to the pandemic.
POLITICS, ELECTIONS
Sega (online) writes that Prime Minister and GERB leader Boyko Borissov continues to broaden the scope of organizations which will support his party in the April 4 general elections. On Monday, he signed partnership agreements with the United Agrarians and the Pamet [Memory] Union of Victims of Communist Repressions. In late February, he made a similar deal with an association headed by former Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) ranking member Mehmed Dikme, the story recalls. Dikme said that the agreement seeks to dispel suspicions that GERB was cooperating with MRF behind the scenes.
***
Mediapool and Dnevnik report that the extraparliamentary Democratic Bulgaria calls on the MPs to hold an extraordinary sitting and adopt legislation to scrap the limit - 35 - on the number of overseas polling stations for Bulgarians elections in countries outside the EU. The legislature is on a break ahead of the elections and will only meet on March 25 to vote on his disbanding. Being a non-parliamentary party, Democratic Bulgaria has no tools to make Parliament to meet which is why they are asking the Parliament speaker, Tsveta Karayancheva, to do so. It turned out that the limit on the number of voting sections in non-EU countries will affect the most Bulgarians who live and work in the UK, because it will be impossible for all of them who have asked to vote, to do so in the 35 voting sections.
***
Trud, Douma, Sega and Mediapool report the government decision to postpone by two years a requirement for all residential buildings to have technical passports. Douma and Trud have the story on their front page. Sega says that the matter has turned into a canvassing weapon in the election campaign. It recalls that Martin Dimitrov and Peter Slavov of Democratic Bulgaria first said that if they are elected MPs, they will move for postponing what they called "the technical passport tax" - a requirement for the residents in all buildings to take out building passports following costly assessment procedures - and define clearly cases when technical passports will need to be prepared. Hours later, GERB struck back and its Deputy Regional Development Minister and MP candidate Nikolai Nankov said in a Facebook post that they are postponing the requirement by two years. Meanwhile, Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova held an emergency news conference to make public her party's position on the explosive subject, Sega writes. Duma writes that "GERB got scared" and insists that the technical passports should be paid for by the State. According to Trud, some of the costs involved in taking out the technical passports will be covered by the government. According to this daily, it will cost up to 1,000 leva per apartment to have a technical passports prepared.
***
Telegraf has an interview with mathematics professor Mihail Konstantinov, who represents the company processing the election results (Information Services), and who says in the interview that they are perfectly organized for the upcoming elections. He expects that the pandemic will lower the turnout but does not think that having longer voting hours is a solution. Instead, the authorities should convince people that voting is safe for the voters' health, he says. He does not expect problems with the voting by quarantined people (who will cast their vote in a mobile box).
***
Trud has a two-page interview with political scientist Stoycho Stoychev about the election campaign, the behaviour of the key players, the likely coalitions after the elections and possible scenarios for the country. Also, he dwells on what he believes to the ambitions of President Rumen Radev for real power, one which he will have through setting up his own political party. He has not succeeded so far: he lacks resources, vision and maybe courage, says Stoychev.
***
A commentary in the Observer column of Sega says that with a quarter of the election campaign gone, it has become clear that all political players who can make life hard for the Prime Minister and GERB leader, don't want to do that. The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) is headed to self-ruin, Slavi Trifonov is visibly unbothered by the campaign and the exiled billionaire Vassil Bojkov is running in the elections on the mandate of a party whose leader used naked photos of himself in the latest mayoral elections, the author says.
***
A decision by a Sofia court, which allowed video monitoring of the ballot counting in the upcoming elections is reported by Trud, Sega, Mediapool and Dnevnik, among others. The matter was taken to the court by the Democratic Bulgaria coalition after the Central Election Commission refused to allow it as a way to ensure the transparency of the election procedure.
***
Sega, Trud and Mediapool, among other news outlets, report that former MRF deputy and leader of the DROM party Ilia Iliev has been acquitted in a vote trade case by Sofia City Court as the charges remained unproven. The court found that the matter was wrongfully investigated by police officers: Iliev had MP immunity and the case should have been handled by an investigator. As a result of that, the court could not accept the proofs collected by the investigating police officers and had to rely on witness testimony. In the court room, however, none of the witnesses would confirm that Iliev offered them money for their vote. Iliev was charged with buying votes in the Roma neighbourhood of the southern town of Yambol in the 2014 parliamentary elections.
ECONOMY
Mediapool has a detailed analysis of what the parties and coalitions have about the taxes in their election platforms. It says that all of them plan tax changes - except for GERB which promises to continue its current tax policy. "None of the proposed changes is radical and does not change dramatically a tax system which puts most of the burden on people and allows more freedom to businesses. There are no plans to change considerably the redistribution role of the government - which is insignificant in Bulgaria as compared to the other EU countries," says the analysis. GERB appears to be the only one of the more serious pretenders for the next Parliament, that does not promise to change the flat income tax. All other parties which are likely to win seats in the legislature, want to introduce a tax threashold for the lowest-income brackets. Nobody plans to change the 10 per cent corporate income tax but there are ideas for changing VAT with lower rates for foods and medicines.
The analyses says that MRF and Volya-NFSB have not yet published their platforms on their websites.
Douma has a full-page interview with economics professor and former Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Development Minister Roumen Gechev, who argues against the flat tax. He says in the headline that the advanced countries donТt even have the flat tax in their school books.
***
24 Chassa carries an analysis of the election platform of the parties and coalitions under the headline "To the Right, Left Leg First". The author says that the promises of the parties are "a cocktail of strikingly similar ideas and measures" and offers a quick overview of the platforms of the key political players.
***
24 Chassa carries a full-page story on the newly adopted safety protocol for the Bulgarian tourist industry. Some key elements of the protocol: no more than two people are allows under one umbrella on the beach (exception is only allowed for bigger families); the shades should be 8 m apart, people should wear a face mask in the hotel lift; all guests suspicious for coronavirus will be isolated and a doctor called for a checkup, among others.
***
Douma and Sega report that while the working economy and the millions of leva handed out as pandemic relief are key elements in the campaign of the power holders, a report by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) puts Bulgaria last in the EU with the level of support for affected businesses and workers, and the collapse in employment is the worst in Europe.
***
Telegraf leads with a story about the price of housing. It says that prices in the coastal cities are more expensive than in Sofia relative to people's incomes.
***
Trud, 24 Chassa and Sega report that the Association of Bulgarian Tour Operators and Travel Agents has issued an open letter to protest the introduction of a mandatory 10-day quarantine and subsequent PCR test for Bulgarian tourists returning from Africa. The measure was enforced by the authorities in a bid to contain the spread of the more contagious variants of the coronavirus as large numbers of Bulgarians chose to travel to Zanzibar which advertises itself as a COVID-free destination. The Association insists that Zanzibar is safe for tourists but Chief Health Inspector Angel Kounchev said Monday on bTV that four Bulgarians returning from the Tanzanian island on one of the last flights, tested positive for coronavirus.
***
Sega reports that a check by the Active Consumers Association found that powdered milk is widely used in the cow's milk sold in the Bulgarian supermarkets. Only three of 17 samples did not contain powdered milk. According to the EU regulations, additives, including powered milk, in raw cow's milk are not banned but should be indicated on the label and none of the products tested by Active Consumers had such indication. In some samples the content of powdered milk was as much as 90 per cent. The consumer-rights watchdog does not name the producers whose milk it has tested, because there is no national standard for the content of milk which is sold in supermarkets as "100% cow's milk". The report says that powdered milk is not bad for people's health but affects the quality of milk.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
A story in Mediapool quotes North Macedonia Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani as saying that no progress has been made in Sofia-Skopje relations and the differences remain. Skopje is focused on the Goodneighbourly Treaty with Bulgaria, where the two countries have some differences, but Sofia is concentrated on internal problems and the upcoming elections, he also said. The authorities in North Macedonia have said that they plan to put the matter in the freezer until after the general elections in Bulgaria, to make sure it is not used for campaign purposes, the story recalls.
SOCIETY
The Tuesday press report the nomination of Bulgaria's Maria Bakalova for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in the current Academy Awards campaign. She was nominated for her part in "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm." Most papers have the story or photos of Bakalova on their front pages.
LAW AND ORDER
24 Chassa leads with a story about Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev asking the Supreme Administrative Court whether a driver commits one or two offences if they refuse a drug or an alcohol test. The reason for the question is that the court practice on such cases is inconsistent, the paper says. It also says that over 11,000 drivers were caught driving under the influence of alcohol and another 4,000 of drugs in 2020.
***
A front-page story in Monitor says that juvenile delinquency was in decline in 2020, according to Interior Ministry figures. LN/
//
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