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Bulgaria corruption in spotlight after journalist Viktoria Marinova’s murder

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Journalist Viktoria Marinova’s murder has shifted global attention to Bulgaria’s ongoing corruption woes. While Western media have been quick to link her killing to her work, experts say more careful reporting is needed.

On Saturday, the body of Bulgarian television journalist Viktoria Marinova was found in the city of Ruse, near the Danube River. She had been robbed, raped and murdered. Several days prior, Marinova had aired an interview on local Bulgarian television station TVN with two journalists from online investigative website Bivol.bg who had investigated and exposed corruption and the embezzlement of European Union funds in the country. Their findings had already been known for several weeks, but many people nevertheless immediately drew a connection between Marinova’s murder and the graft revelations.

It’s hardly a surprising conclusion. In its 2018 report, Reporters without Borders placed Bulgaria 111th in the world in terms of press freedom — the lowest ranking in the EU and the entire Balkan region. Now, international media organizations including the Association of European Journalists, as well as the EU and United Nations, are expressing grave concern over Marinova’s murder and demanding a swift investigation into her death.

Germany arrests murder suspect

Marinova’s death has focused attention on the reporting by Bivol.bg. The country’s prosecutor general, Sotir Tsatsarov, has announced that the authorities are now looking into money laundering and have frozen some €14 million ($16 million) in funds. Tsatsarov did not, however, say which individuals are under investigation.German journalist and Bulgaria expert Frank Stier believes that in future the country will be more thoroughly scrutinized before EU funds are distributed. “There is really nothing good about a gruesome murder like this,” he said. “But Ms. Marinova’s murder has led the European Commission to more closely examine Bivol.bg’s findings, and to urge Bulgaria’s authorities to shed more light on the case.”

On Tuesday, German police arrested a 21-year-old Bulgarian suspect in connection to Marinova’s murder. Mounting evidence seems to suggest Marinova fell victim to a spontaneous attack and sexual assault, rather than being deliberately targeted for her work as journalist.

Western media quick to draw conclusions

Daniel Kaddik, who heads the Sofia office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a nongovernmental organization affiliated with Germany’s business-friendly Free Democratic Party, believes Marinova’s murder has shed light on the inner workings of the Bulgarian state, and concedes that the case looks suspicious.

“Given Bulgaria’s serious problems with press freedom and democracy, it is understandably being asked whether Marinova’s murder could have been linked to her work as a journalist,” Kaddik said. “What I find dangerous, however, is that many Western media outlets are already fully convinced the crime had something to do with her job.”

Keeping cautious

The exact details of Marinova’s tragic death are yet to be established. But whatever is ultimately revealed, her case has caused the media to re-examine the dismal state of press freedom and rampant corruption in Bulgaria, as well as the lack of action from the authorities in Brussels when it comes to addressing it.

At the same time, stressed journalist Frank Stier, it is important that the press be careful in jumping to conclusions. “Claims that prematurely linked the murder of Ms. Marinova to her work, as were made by the media and international organizations like the European Commission and even the UN, were akin to an avalanche,” he said. “I think the media should have been more cautious in its reporting.”

These Street Artists are Turning a Bulgarian Village into an Open Air Gallery

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A team of street artists are recreating the 20th century’s greatest masterpieces in a small village in central Bulgaria.

Katarzyna Piriankova and Ventsislav Piriankov, a Polish-Bulgarian husband-and-wife team, have been slowly transforming the sleepy hamlet of Staro Zhelezare into an open air art gallery for the last three years.

Along with students from their current base in Poznan, the couple work throughout July and August each year to turn Ventsislav’s former hometown into a celebration of art and country life, with portraits of local residents adorning many of the village streets.

This year’s project, which is part of the official program for Plovdiv’s 2019 run as European Cultural Capital, is bringing the best of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, including reproductions of work by Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp and Jackson Pollock.

Tourist bus crash in Bulgaria leaves 15 dead and 27 injured as coach flips off highway near Sofia

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15 people have been killed in a bus crash in Bulgaria

Police said a bus carrying tourists on a weekend trip to a nearby resort overturned and then fell down a side road 66 feet below the highway

A BUS crash in Bulgaria has left 15 tourists dead and another 27 injured after the vehicle flipped of highway near Sofia.

Police said a bus carrying tourists on a weekend trip to a nearby resort overturned and then fell down a side road 66 feet below the highway.

The country’s health minister confirmed the tragedy today saying it occurred at around 5:10 p.m. about 12 miles north of the capital.

At least 15 ambulances from Sofia, Montana and Vratsa rushed to the scene and took the injured to hospitals in the capital.

Doctors said some of the injured were in critical condition.

Initial reports suggest the bus lost control on wet asphalt and hit two cars before rolling off the road.

It is still not known exactly how many people were on the bus nor was there any immediate information about the nationality of the passengers.

Bulgaria’s government quickly declared Monday a national day of mourning.

Passion Crime: Mafia Uses Young Bulgarian Girls to Trap Drunk Tourists

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Web Users have taken to Tripadvisor to report a new, but increasingly practiced scam at sun-kissed Bulgarian resorts like Bansko, Golden Sands and Sunny Beach, which annually draw hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers from around the world.

Thugs are said to be exploiting underage girls to lure drunk tourists to secluded beach spots promising them free sex only to subsequently rob them, with some victims having reportedly ended up in hospital, according to The Sun.

Once a victim, who has overly indulged in tremendously cheap Bulgarian alcohol, is left alone with some seductive underage beauty, bulky gangsters emerge from the dark and ask for his wallet and – possibly finding it insufficient to grab hold of the victim’s valuables – even beat him up.

“Don’t go to the beach with one of these prostitutes its where they work, they take people’s money after taking them to a secluded spot,” one user called David Greene wrote on TripAdvisor, while another echoed his message, also warning against rendezvousing with the “girls” at widely popular Bulgarian resorts.

“Lads go on the beach late at night with the ‘girls’, and before anything can happen, the heavies will appear and take all their money saying its a ‘on the spot fine’,” a Welsh tourist noted.

Prostitution is not formally banned in Bulgaria but it is believed to be linked to the criminal world, with the mafia known to run many of the bars and clubs in resort towns.

The Shortage for Qualified Staff in Bulgaria is the Largest in 8 Years

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Shortage for Qualified Staff

The business in Bulgaria faces the biggest shortage of staff since 2011. This is the Manpower staffing survey, involving more than 600 companies, in the Talent Tolerance 2018 study.

A total of 68% of businesses in Bulgaria are finding it difficult to fill their vacancies, with skilled workers, engineers and drivers the most difficult to find. Employees for restaurants and hotels, health professionals, IT specialists, sales representatives are also deficient.

The top 10 of the hardest to find are also managers, office workers, accountants and financiers. According to the survey, 38% of employers point out the lack of candidates as the main reason for the shortage of staff in Bulgaria. Among the remaining obstacles are lack of skills in the specialty (24%) and experience (11%). 11% of companies can not fill their vacancies because of the expectations of candidates for higher pay and the lack of soft skills – communication, teamwork and problem solving. Three more Balkan countries are among the countries where it is most difficult to find suitable staff. In Romania, 81% of entrepreneurs complain of staff shortages, 66% in Turkey and 61% in Greece. The most serious is the situation with workers in Japan (89%), Taiwan (78%) and Hong Kong (76%), Singapore (56%), India (56%).

Ireland (18%), the UK (19%) and the Netherlands (24%) have the least difficulty in filling vacancies. A month ago, the Employment Agency announced a pilot study of the workforce needs in Bulgaria, the results of which slightly differ from the new Manpower data. According to it, business needs economists the most (although until recently they have been declared non-prospective), engineers, machine operators, sellers and chefs – the shortage for these professions will remain even in the next 5 years.

35.3% declare that they do not have vacancies, but that in the next 6 months 61% of employers will need new staff. The study also confirmed the tendency to search for more people with vocational education than for university graduates – 58% of companies need specialists with secondary education and qualifications. The most sought after are business management and administrative activities followed by those needed for industrial activities, architecture and construction. The EA also reported hunger for workers without special qualifications – general workers, couriers, carriers, workers in the processing industry and food aiders.

Bulgaria: Turkish-Armenian artist Julia Mutlu’s Memories from Akhtamar photo exhibition held in Sofia,

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Akhtamar photo exhibition

Akhtamar photo exhibition

A photo exhibition of Armenian national dresses (taraz) titled “Memories from Akhtamar” was opened June 28th in the Museum of Ethnography in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The exhibition was organized by the Institute of Ethnographic Research of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the AGBU’s Sofia branch, the ministry of foreign affairs said.

The exhibition features a collection of Armenian national dresses, designed by Turkish-Armenian artist Julia Mutlu, displayed by models posing near Armenian churches, monuments and other sites in Van, Turkey.

The models for the photoshoot were Turks of different ages.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Bulgaria Armen Sargsyan took part in the opening of the exhibition along with representatives of the Armenian community of the city and local figures.

The photos were also displayed in Plovdiv.

 

Bulgaria PM Borisov Proposes Closing all Borders in the EU

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Prime Minister Boyko Borisov proposes the closure of all borders in the European Union (EU) in order to stop the flow of illegal migrants. His suggestion was made at the Plenary Meeting of the Conference of European Affairs Committees of the EU Parliaments.

“Bulgaria has managed without much talk, without much complaining, we have created a reliable guard on the Bulgarian-Turkish border – with the necessary enclosures, additional police, ships and for a year and a half Bulgaria has a new situation. On the map you can see that our border, which is guarded, is as much as the Greek one, so I propose a compromise that I will defend at the European Council – first of all we offer immediate prevention and it includes closing all borders in the EU, “Borisov said.

“Officially, anyone wishing to enter the EU has to go to checkpoints (inspection posts) – see the prints, make inspection and so on. This is no different than what is happening in the US, Canada. Why Europe is not like that? “That is a big mistake,” the prime minister said.

“Countries should be divided within Europe. The countries that are part of EU’s border like Bulgaria need to be assisted and get help from the rest, and everything to go through checkpoints.  If someone does not meet the requirements they should return from where they came, Borisov explained, so the first word is called prevention – immediately stopping the flow and from there following the rules, “the prime minister said. According to him, Bulgaria guaranteed 100% of our part of the EU’s external border.

If they are not caught within the EU, disciplined and aided, they can become a source for extremism, Borisov said. If there is no help for the Western Balkans right now, it will be very late, he said.

“The latest war was here in the Balkans – in Kosovo, and we decided to give an example with our colleagues from Macedonia and what could not be achieved for decades we succeeded in signing the contract with our colleague Zoran Zaev.

Hopes rise for Penka, Bulgarian cow that strayed outside EU

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Cows in Bulgaria similar to Penka

Bulgarian farmer Ivan Haralampiev was initially happy when his cow Penka was returned after two weeks out of the EU in the fields of Serbia. But then inspectors said she had to be put down because of missing paperwork.

The case of the straying cow, Penka from the Bulgarian village of Kopilovtsi, is to be decided on Monday after her situation caused a social media storm, a petition with 27,000 signatures including that of ex-Beatles singer Paul McCartney and an intervention from an English Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Penka is a red cow who, two weeks ago, went for a wander which took her out of the European Union, a few kilometers into the neighboring, non-EU state of Serbia. Her border crossing was captured on camera but Bulgarian police were unable to stop her.

A Serbian farmer found her two weeks later near the town of Bosilegrad and she was identified by her EU-standard ear tag. Police contacted Penka’s owner, Ivan Haralampiev, and told him to come and get her.

Paper block

But on their way home, Haralampiev and Penka were held up at the border as they lacked the necessary EU documentation to authorize the cow’s return.

Bulgarian officials intervened to say the animal must be put down because of EU regulations, despite the clean bill of health she had received from vets in Serbia.

Then the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency ruled laboratory tests could be carried out to ensure Penka was free from disease and able to return to her barn.

“So far laboratory analyses of the cow, which spent 15 days in Serbia and crossed the border back (into Bulgaria) are favorable,” the agency reported in a statement on Saturday. “The final results will be out on Monday and the animal remains under quarantine.”

Petition for clemency

The EU’s Food Safety Authority (EFSA) entered the fray on Saturday after Penka’s fate became a media issue at the EU Commission’s daily briefing on Friday and a petition was launched:

“We, the signatories of this petition, urge the EU to make an exception on compassionate grounds for Penka and not execute her. We believe that Penka’s case reflects a lack of compassion on the part of EU officialdom for everyday people, such as Penka’s owner, who is absolutely distraught.”

By Saturday evening, the petition had gathered 27,033 signatures and the EFSA said it was holding talks with authorities in Macedonia and Serbia.

Bulgarian animal rights organization Four Paws has also taken up the cow’s case.

British Conservative MEP John Flack wrote to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and to the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, to defend the life of the roving Bulgarian ruminant.

However, Dr Alexandra Miteva of Bulgaria’s Animal Healthcare directorate called Penka’s wanderings “an enormous violation of European, and accordingly our, legislation.”

The laboratory results are anticipated by many more than the concerned farmers of Bulgaria.

jm/aw (dpa)

Bulgaria torn between Russia and the West

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Bulgaria is dependent on Russian gas, but it is also a member of NATO and the European Union. Straddling the gap between Moscow and Brussels has put the country in a foreign policy quagmire.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev’s and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov’s recent visits to Russia have fueled speculation that Sofia may be turning its back on the West and aligning with Moscow. Bulgaria, which is a European Union member state, is dependent on Russian gas, and there has even been talk of reviving Bulgaria’s Belene nuclear power plant project using Russian technology. Economic ties aside, Bulgaria and Russia also have much in common historically, linguistically and culturally. This longstanding relationship has made Bulgaria reluctant to freeze out Moscow since joining NATO and the EU.

Parts of Bulgaria’s political establishment insist the country could act as a mediator between Russia and the West, or at least capitalize on its good ties with Moscow. It’s in this context that the name of Bulgaria’s World War II-era leader, Czar Boris III, often comes up. In 1942, he allegedly told Nazi Germany’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, that “[Bulgaria] will always be on Germany’s side and never against Russia.”

A flawed historic example

Yet perpetually citing this problematic ― and historically unverified ― quote belies the true nature of the EU. The bloc is not, as the quote may be used to imply, a product of great power politics, thrust onto others by Germany, France, the United States or Russia. Indeed, Bulgaria is not being forced to ally with one side or another, unlike in World War II, when Boris III found himself weighing up whether German or Russian troops presented the greater threat to his country.

The EU is about voluntarily engaging in European integration. No country was ever forced to join the bloc, and some member states are even reluctant to enlarge it. Countries are also free to leave, as Brexit demonstrates.

Bulgaria is not somehow under pressure to distance itself from Russia. If, however, you have made the sovereign decision to join the EU and partner with its 27 member states, then you must also accept its policies. If there is an agreed EU approach towards Russia, then it must be followed. But this is not, as some may claim, an instance where policy is somehow being “dictated by others.”

The EU-Russia relationship

Present-day apologists for Boris III’s quote would probably argue that it is proving prescient, as Germany and Russia are seemingly growing closer. Indeed, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both traveled to Russia in May for talks with President Vladimir Putin. But given the EU’s resolute stance on key issues like the Ukraine conflict, Syria, Iran and the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal, it is in fact is doubtful that Germany and Russia are truly strengthening their ties. Recent talks with Russia have only gone forward in order to save the Iran nuclear deal and discuss economic matters.

None of this signals a strategic reorientation of the EU towards Russia, as is often claimed in Bulgaria. NATO and the US remain the guarantors of EU security and that is not set to change anytime soon, because despite the rocky relations between Washington and Brussels of late, both sides benefit from this strategic alliance.

Bulgarian politicians must honor the responsibilities that come with being a NATO and EU member, instead of trying to capitalize on the strained EU-Russia relationship. Membership in those Western organizations continues to pay off, which is why Bulgaria should not play diplomatic Russian roulette.

Daniel Smilov is a Bulgarian political and legal researcher at the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia.

Bulgaria president arrives in Armenia

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Bulgaria president arrives in Armenia

Bulgaria president arrives in Armenia

YEREVAN. – The airplane of the Bulgarian president Rumen Radev has landed in Yerevan.

The President was welcomed by Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian. Rumen Radev arriived in Armenia on a state visit at the invitation of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

Within the framework of his visit, the President of the Republic of Bulgaria is due to meet with the leadership of the Republic of Armenia – the President, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister. President Rumen Radev will also be hosted by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. After the meeting with His Holiness, the President of Bulgaria will call at the Mother Cathedral and the Treasury.

At the end of the Armenian-Bulgarian top-level talks in the residence of the President of Armenia, Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Rumen Radev will sum up the results of their meeting before the media.

The Presidents will then attend a document signing ceremony, at which several documents will be signed aimed at expanding and deepening bilateral cooperation between Armenia and Bulgaria.

In the framework of his visit, the President of Bulgaria will call at Matenadaran, the TUMO Center for Creative Technologies and Secondary School N131 in Yerevan named after Peyo Yavorov.