AUSTRIA, which on January 1 assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union, has issued reassuring signals to Bulgaria about the countrys scheduled accession to the EU.
In May, the European Commission is due to release a report that will be crucial to whether the EU accession of Bulgaria and Romania will go ahead as scheduled, on January 1 2007.
A few days before Austria took over the EU presidency, Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev went to Vienna for two days for talks with chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
Schuessel reassured Stanishev that Bulgaria had every chance of joining the EU at the beginning of 2007.
The chancellor said that Austria had already launched the ratification of the accession treaties for Bulgaria and Romania and the process would be completed by the end of June 2006.
Austria was impressed with Bulgarias efforts towards EU membership, Schuessel said. Austria is assisting Bulgaria in 10 areas in its preparations for accession, including legal matters, security, food and wine control, the two heads of government told a news conference after the talks.
Meanwhile, the opening months of 2006 will see a number of other crucial foreign and domestic issues.
These include an increasing cost of living, with excise duties on fuel, liquor and cigarettes having risen with effect from January 1.
The new excise duty on fuel is expected to lead to a petrol price increase of about 0.45 leva a litre. Increased excises on liquor have led to spirit drinks costing about 1.70 leva more a litre. The price of cigarettes is also going up, with the most popular brand to cost about a lev more a packet. While increased excise duties on cigarettes came into force on January 1, some stocks at the old prices were expected to be available until mid-January. Media reports said that the cigarette price increase would persuade some Bulgarians, generally a nation of heavy smokers, to give up.
A natural gas price increase of 60 per cent may also be on the agenda for Bulgaria. This may happen if the country accepts the tariff revision requested by Russias Gazprom, according to Ignat Tomanov, deputy chairperson of the State Energy and Water Regulation Commission, who made the prognosis in a January 3 interview with a Bulgarian-language newspaper.
Gazprom, the sole supplier of natural gas for Bulgaria, proposed that the country pay between $230 and $260 for a 1000 cu m of natural gas in 2006.
The increase could push up heating prices by 40 per cent. This would seriously affect industrial consumers because heating utilities use about 70 per cent of the natural gas in Bulgaria. In the coming months, meetings will be held at government level in an attempt to reach agreement on the prices.
Meanwhile, on January 3, the National Revenue Agency (NRA) opened its doors.
Set up on the recommendation of Bulgarias international partners including the International Monetary Fund, the NRA is designed to be a consolidated institution for the collection of taxes and social security contributions.
Establishment of the NRA was named as one of the priorities of the Government.
The NRAs launch was preceded by the new tax and insurance code adopted by Parliament a few days before Christmas.
In collecting taxes and social security contributions, the NRA will take over the roles of the tax administration and the National Social Security Institute.
Another issue for Bulgaria in 2006 will be the election of a new Prosecutor-General, since the seven-year term of the current incumbent, Nikola Filchev, ends on February 22. The election procedure will open on January 11.
One of Bulgarias continuing foreign policy issues will be the case of the Bulgarian medics in Libya. On December 25, Libyas supreme court, responding to an appeal by the nurses against the death sentence pronounced against them in 2004 for allegedly deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV, referred the case back to a lower court for retrial. The supreme court decision followed the establishment of an international fund to assist the children. Libya has indicated that the medics could be released if compensation was paid, although Bulgaria and several international bodies and other countries continue to insist on the innocence of the medics.
Developments in the case, along with the other key domestic and foreign policy issues - from cost of living to EU accession - are expected to have an impact on one of the other significant events scheduled for 2006, the Presidential election, which is to be held in the second half of the year.
On the economic front, analysts have given generally positive predictions.
According to Bank Austria Creditanstalt analysts, GDP will rise six per cent this year, and a high growth rate will be maintained through Bulgarias stable fiscal and anti-inflation policies. Bulgaria will remain a leader in GDP growth in the Southeast European region, the banks analysts said.
