We do not want to be together with the Romanians!

When guests visit you, it is polite to welcome them with kind words and serve them what you have. Hospitality is hospitality, but European and NATO food is not for free. That is why the newly elected rulers of Bulgaria should not be quick to promise Romania that we will be striding together to NATO.

In Europe, Bulgaria has the image of a country that is in front of Romania on its way to European organizations. Apart from warming up each Bulgarian heart, this conclusion has other, much different practical aspects. As the UDF justifiably noted yesterday, after Bulgaria distanced itself from Romania, entry visas for Schengen countries were abolished. Our Romanian neighbours are still standing in line at the Western embassies. So, regarding NATO and EU entry, let us behave towards Romania like the towns of Sliven and Yambol acted on August 13, when the two towns had a dispute over where the epicenter of the earthquake was.
-24 Chassa

The New Time also formed friends' circles

The long-awaited deputy ministers are already known to society. In one of the most important ministries, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, we see former business partners, who stand next to each other in service to the state. It turned out that Georgi Zhelezchev, one of the deputies of Georgi Petkanov, Minister of Interior Affairs, was Petkanov's partner in a mutual firm. Chairman of the Bulgarian Parliament Ognyan Gerdjikov was also a partner in the firm. The name of the firm was Factor-Konsult Ltd. and it played various roles in Bulgarian privatization.

A day before this news, it was announced that Kolev, the husband of television star Milena Milotinova, had become the regional governor of the town of Pernik. The family unit was highly defended when parliamentary election ballots were arranged. When a husband could not attend, his wife went instead. In certain places, both were registered on the same ballot form.

The company connections of the people from the New Time are already clear to everybody. There are no MPs from the National Movement Simeon II who did not have business relations with other MPs from the same parliamentary group, prior to June 17, the day of the parliamentary elections.

There are serious misgivings about the new regional governors of Haskovo and Vidin. It is suspected that they have specific company interests. The same goes for the rest of their colleagues.

Wise men say that, if it was just about changing one set of cousins for another, we did not need a king. We already had Kostov.
-Monitor

Fighting the fires with a working group

In the unofficial Bulgarian theory for ruling the state, there is one old rule: if you want to postpone the resolution of a problem, create a working group. In the Kostov Cabinet, groups were created by ministers for the execution of tasks. Deadlines were set which were either extended or missed. Or the problem died out in the meantime and everyone forgot about it.

The new cabinet, though it lacks experience of executive power, has obviously learned the old knacks of governing. At the height of the summer, after fires had been raging in Bulgaria for a month and a half in forests and stubble-fields, destroying huge areas of nature, the Cabinet decided to fight nature by appointing a group of ministers to "prepare measures."

The first draft proposal which was made public sounded truly promising - to extend the period to clear trees from burned forests from one to three years. This should eliminate the possibility of deliberate arsons because the timber is unusable three years after the fire.

The problem is that Parliament must convene to change the legislation, so that the new rule can be enforced. The project should be passed by the Cabinet, the parliamentary committees and the session hall of the Parliament. Eventually, in September or October the fires will naturally end, the ministers will congratulate themselves because the fires stopped even though the change in the law was not passed. And those who started the fires will be free to act again. In the meantime the ministers in the group will comfort themselves that the number of arsons was less than last year's. The export of timber was also lower. "The co-ordination between all units is very good, and the implementation of the ban for setting fire to stubble-fields has been effective." The television might make everything sound convincing, but if one sees the burning stubble-fields in the Sakar mountain, the talk about effective control sounds like a fairy-tale.

Apart from anything else, simple logic excludes the option of acting against the fires with a two-month perspective. After all, if there is a situation which requires urgent action, it is a fire.
-Kapital