About Bulgaria

If anyone reading this blog requires further information about Bulgaria then they can e mail me on info@gobg.co.uk, or post comment on the blog.

EU Shennanigans

Rumena Julieva, the Bulgarian nomination for the International Co-operation and Human Rights portfolio, is in trouble.She gave what was termed a 'weak' performance at the hearing into her confirmation, and there are big suspicions about non-declaration of business interests during her time as an MEP.She has also been described as a 'gangsters moll' due to her husbands alleged links to gangsters on the Black Sea, and the dodgy TIM insurance company.
It may be that her nomination is withdrawn, or there is the possibility that the whole commission will be rejected.
The sub-plot to this is that the Slovak nominee is also in trouble for anti-gypsy remarks.He is a Socialist nominee and Julieva is from the rightist European Peoples Party.This is adding to the underlying tension.
So we wait and see.

EU-Turkey update

Bulgarian Minister Admits Faux Pas over Turkey EU Bid

Diplomacy
The Bulgarian official, who caused an uproar after threatening to block Turkey's application to join the European Union unless it pays out billions of euros in compensation for displaced people, has repented over his rash step.
“I have made a faux pas. The prime minister is right, it is my gaff, not his,” Bozhidar Dimitrov, a Bulgarian cabinet minister without portfolio who runs the country's Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, said on Thursday.
According to Dimitrov he has gotten wrong a report of the European Commission on Turkey's progress, which has recommended that the country sticks to its commitments.
“Obviously this has been just a recommendation, not a condition for EU membership,” Dimitrov added.
A day earlier Prime Minister Boyko Borisov threatened to sack Dimitrov in an attempt to make good in the dispute over Turkey's EU accession, which has elicited a high-level rebuke from Turkey.
Bulgarian deputy foreign minister Marin Raykov also tried to ease tensions, saying that there is no threat of a veto and that Bulgaria backs all the decisions of the European Union, concerning the dialogue between Brussels and Ankara.
Bulgaria and Turkey concluded a deal in 1925 in which they agreed the value of the lost land and property, but the compensation has never been paid. In 1983 the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry claimed that the assets left behind by the expelled Bulgarians were worth USD 10 B.
Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov however had said that considering the years of foot-dragging Sofia is within its rights to demand at least twice as much money.
Turkey began accession talks with the EU in 2005 but progress has been slow, with just 12 out of 35 negotiation chapters opened so far.

Uncles Comment: This is a PR disaster the European press has had a field day with this.

Payback time...

Turkey Calls for Calm as Bulgaria Threatens Veto

Diplomacy
Days after Sofia threatened to block Ankara's application to join the European Union, Turkey's foreign minister has urged the Bulgarian government to avoid statements that could hurt bilateral relations.
“The friendship between Bulgaria and Turkey is for the good of the two countries. It would be much better if statements that might hurt this freindship are avoided,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday, taking up a journalistic question.
The call comes shortly after Bozhidar Dimitrov, Bulgarian cabinet minister without portfolio who runs the country's Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, said his country may block Turkey's application to join the European Union unless it pays out billions of euros in compensation for displaced people, in a case dating back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.
Bozhidar Dimitrov pressed the claim in remarks to the Bulgarian newspaper, 24 Hours, on Sunday (3 January). An official in the Bulgarian government's press office, Veselin Ninov, told EUobserver on Monday that Dimitrov's statement reflects government policy and that the dispute is being handled by a Bulgarian-Turkish intergovernmental working group. The information was cited on Tuesday in a number of Turkish newspapers, including Sabah, Zaman and Radical.
Talking to journalists on Tuesday, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pointed out that important issues between the two countries, such as this one, should not be commented through the media.
In his words the relations between Ankara and Sofia are a model of excellence for the region, while their cooperation of mutual interest and set an example on the Balkans.
Sofia has not approached officially Ankara with regards to these claims, Ahmet Davutoglu said.
Bulgaria and Turkey concluded a deal in 1925 in which they agreed the value of the lost land and property, but the compensation has never been paid. In 1983 the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry claimed that the assets left behind by the expelled Bulgarians were worth USD 10 B.
Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, who is responsible for government policy on Bulgarians living abroad, says that considering the years of foot-dragging Sofia is within its rights to demand at least twice as much money.
Turkey began accession talks with the EU in 2005 but progress has been slow, with just 12 out of 35 negotiation chapters opened so far.

A curious tale

Who Is Who: Murdered Bulgarian Journalist Bobi Tsankov

People
Boris Nikolov Tsankov, aka Bobi Tsankov, was murdered in broad daylight in downtown Sofia on January 5, 2010.
He was born in Sofia in 1979, and graduated from the Sofia Music High School “Lyubomir Pipkov”. He was the host of radio and TV shows including SMS Text Message betting games on a number of Bulgarian media – Radio 7 Days, Radio Hit 7, Radio Signal Plus, Radio Sport, Radio Viva, Radio Bravo – Varna, Radio Praktika, Radio Extreme – Pernik, TV Channel 2001, Balkan Bulgarian Television, SKAT TV, BGTV, and 7 Days TV.
He first became famous as a controversial figure when he was first arrested on June 24, 2003.
The signal against him was submitted by businesswoman Vanya Chervenkova. Tsankov was allegedly linked to the attempted murder on 35-year-old Vanya Chervenkova that filed a claim against him. Chervenkova has brought a lawsuit against Tsankov, claiming that she had paid the radio anchor some BGN 50 000 for advertising on Radio Viva. However, Tsankov never broadcasted any ads of Chervenkova's mineral water brand.
In June 2003, the Deputy Sofia Prosecutor, Petar Chalamov, said that the arrested radio host was charged with large-scale fraud as over 1 000 people from around Bulgaria had filed suits against him. In August 2003, Tsankov was released on a BGN 25 000 bail.
According to media reports, Tsankov committed fraud in several ways. One was to announce people could win free advertising in his show but then asked them to pay the amount of the value-added tax where he kept the money without broadcasting any ads. Another way was to ask the potential advertisers for money for billboards in Sofia which also never came up. A third way was to ask those who were said to have won free advertising to pay half of the amount of the ad to distribute the money among the owners and sponsors of the radio. He is said to have taken sums ranging from BGN 3 000 to BGN 17 000.
In November 2003, a bomb went off in a building in the centre of Sofia at the Neofit Rilski and Tsar Asen Str. The bomb was placed in front of the apartment of the parents of the controversial radio anchor Bobi Tsankov. The family of Tsankov was home during the blast but no one was injured.
The blast spurred rumors that Tsankov was a close associate of Sofia drugs boss Anton Miltenov, aka The Beak, and that the explosion was actually directed against him.
Tsankov was arrested again on June 3, 2004, for interrogation over his connections with Miltenov. A day earlier, he was injured in an evident attempt on his life when a hand-made bomb exploded in front of his home.
On February 27, 2006, Tsankov was arrested again over numerous frauds. His home at Tsar Asen Street where he lived with his parents was searched and he was interrogated by the Economic Police Unit.
On March 2, 2006, he was left behind bars by the Sofia District Court. Businesswoman Vanya Chervenkova was the main witness against him.
On June 27, 2006, he got a suspended three-year sentence with a five-year trial period over frauds during his time as host at the Viva Radio.
A second investigation against Tsankov is ongoing. He is investigated for misappropriation of property while he was the Executive Director of the 7 Days Radio in 2001.
In November 2009, Bulgarian Police arrested drugs kingpin ‘Jacket’ (Sako) in Sofia after he chased former radio host Bobi Tsankov through the streets of the capital in his car. ‘Jacket’ is also reported to have made previous threats against Tsankov’s life. Tsankov called the police while being chased.
Tsankov said that he had been chased in his car from the South Park in Sofia to the traffic lights in the City Center from where he managed to escape. He alleged ‘Sako’ was attempting to stop him writing about another famous mafia boss Metodi Metodiev a.k.a. Meto Ilienski being alive when he was thought by the authorities to be dead.
At the very end of 2009 New Bulgarian Media Group owned by media tycoon Irena Krasteva, who is the publisher of the Weekend paper, published Tsankov’s book in which he claims that Sofia drugs boss Metodi Metodiev, aka Meto Ilienski was still alive even though he disappeared in November 2003, and that he had become an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Agency DEA.

Well it's a bit different

BULGARIA BEACH RESORTS COUNT ON GERMAN HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS

German high school seniors are the tourists Bulgaria largest sea resort Sunny Beach counts on to fill its hotels.
Over 30 hotels have reservations for German high school proms and the students are expected to be the first tourists arriving at the resort in May.
The increased interest had been a surprise even for travel agents, while the groups are expected to stay at Sunny Beach at least for a week.
In addition to Sunny Beach, German high school seniors are expected in the northern Black Sea resorts of Albena and Golden Sands.
Travel agents say the reservations, which begin booking at the end of 2009, are higher in numbers compared to the last season.

UK Govt urges crackdown on property fraud

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has urged Bulgaria to raise standards and tighten controls in the Real Estate sector in the country.
A letter to Bryan Talbot, who recently won his final appeal after having his dream EUR 98 000 villa stolen from him and sold on three times, was exclusively shown to Novinite.com regarding the issue.
Natalie Luscombe from the European Directorate of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office stated that the UK Ambassador in Sofia met with the then Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister in early 2009 “to emphasise the need to raise standards and tighten controls in the Real Estate sector and also sought assurances that the problems encountered by British Nationals purchasing property in Bulgaria would be taken seriously at government level”
Luscombe added that “following the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria on 5th July a new Bulgarian government was sworn in on 27th July our Ambassador (Steve Williams) again raised these issues in his introductory calls on relevant new Ministers.” She continued by praising the “new governments subsequent commitment to promoting more transparent and effective overall public administration, and to tackling corruption much more rigorously than in the past.”
“I hope that the efforts of our Embassy, and the stated commitment of the Bulgarian government, will help, to raise regulatory and professional standards in the Bulgarian Real Estate sector, .....and people who purchased in Bulgaria to have better protection and access to advice in the future,” she concluded

Michael Shields

Michael Shields: Left with a Lingering Sense of Injustice

Views on BG
From independent.co.uk
By Jonathan Brown
If Michael Shields thought that the authorities were going to help smooth his return back into normal life, he was sorely mistaken. The combined shortcomings of the British and Bulgarian legal and political systems had already condemned the young Liverpool football fan to serve four-and-a-half years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
So when it came to his release, after a prolonged and impassioned campaign by his family and the people of his home city against his wrongful conviction for the attempted murder of a Bulgarian waiter, he was inured to the prospect of being let down again.
"If someone commits a crime and they get out of prison I know it's not much help but you do get a probation officer and they keep an eye on you. But no one has ever contacted me. I've never had anything from them, no offer of counselling or an offer of a reason why it happened," he says.
It is four months since the quietly spoken 23-year-old became the first Briton to be granted a royal pardon for a wrongful conviction overseas, and in that time he has begun to rebuild his life.
Shortly before Christmas, the young engineer found himself a job working on-site for a property management company. Still fit-looking from his time pumping iron at the prison gym, his hair longer now than in the pictures which publicised his campaign, work has provided a welcome change. In the immediate aftermath of his release, he spent long restless days in front of the television at his family home, trying not to mull over the sense of injustice burning away inside him. Life after jail poses considerable challenges for any former inmate. For those wrongly convicted those pressures can be immense.
Yet in many ways, admits Mr Shields, he has been lucky. He has a large and protective family and the support of a strong community of neighbours and fellow Liverpool FC fans. The club itself was pivotal in keeping up the pressure over his wrongful conviction, and he celebrated his first match back in the luxury of the directors' box at Anfield. His parents, Michael and Maria, who devoted all their energies to campaigning for his release, are having to adapt too. "They are fine. You can see them getting better. They are smiling more. It affected them more than anyone," Mr Shields acknowledges. "Through my family, I have had time to find my feet," he says.
Sitting in the front room of the smart terraced house in the Wavertree area of the city, with its vivid red colour scheme in tribute to Liverpool Football Club, he says he has found it easy to rekindle friendships that were put on ice when he was sentenced to 15 years by the court in Sofia in 2005 (though he declines to discuss whether he is now in a relationship). "The first two months everything happened too fast. I just couldn't take it in ... I couldn't relax. I couldn't sit down and watch the telly. I had to keep myself occupied. The last four weeks have been better." he says.
It was on the last day of his first-ever trip overseas, to see Liverpool win the Champions League, that normality was suspended for the young engineer, aged just 18 at the time. He was arrested by Bulgarian police investigating a brutal late-night attack on the waiter, Martin Georgiev, who had been punched to the ground and hit on the head with a heavy stone, leaving him severely injured. Failures in the inquiry, notably a flawed identity parade, meant Mr Shields was wrongly picked out. Another Liverpool fan, Graham Sankey, confessed to the assault, although he later withdrew his statement.
As protests grew back home, including an emotional display on the Kop at Anfield, the Supreme Court in Sofia in 2006 reduced the sentence on appeal, but refused to grant a retrial. Mr Shields was transferred to finish his sentence in the UK – but not until a benefit concert helped raise the £90,000 needed to pay off his outstanding costs, including £80,000 compensation to the victim.
Yet despite the ongoing doubts over the safety of the conviction, and the insistence of the High Court in London to the contrary, Justice Secretary Jack Straw remained adamant that it was not in his power to review the case. Following the submission of fresh evidence, Mr Straw eventually recommended a royal pardon. "I thought that it wasn't going to happen. I thought, 'He's not going to do it'. I had no faith, or no hope, in Jack Straw whatsoever," Mr Shields recalls. "They should have just looked at the facts of the case. When you look at the facts of the case it is there. When you bring politics into it, and you think these will be upset and those will be upset ... – but we were upset because of the miscarriage of justice," he says. The Shields family have yet to receive an official apology, and there is still no prospect of compensation. Even getting written confirmation of his pardon required a spectacular degree of effort, Mr Shields recalls. And "The thing that wound me up most was getting no apology. I'm definitely still looking for one, and someone has got to give me one. I think I should get two – one from the British Government for doing nothing about it, and one should come from Bulgaria."
Jail was a difficult time for a young man from a close-knit family who had never been in trouble with the police before: "It was frustrating that no one believes you, or frustrating that no one is doing nothing about it, or frustrating that people have got away with doing this thing to you... There were a few times when I had visits and I'd just say 'That's it: just forget about it – I don't want to know'."
Now he says he has to force himself to move on – even though the real culprit has never been brought to justice: "I don't think about it. If I do, I get angry and bitter, so I just make myself not think about it," he says.
There remain serious obstacles to getting the retrial he seeks – not least that the victim picked him out in court. "It was a horrible thing what happened to him ... It messes with your head. It should be important to the victim to see justice happen too," he says. To help fund the campaign Mr Shields has recounted his own version of events in his book, My Story. He continues to support other people wrongly jailed overseas, working with the campaign group Fair Trials Abroad.
But it is the small things he is relishing now. "Four-and-a-half years is a long time, especially when you are young. Sometimes when I'm out, someone will say, 'Remember when this happened or then we did this,' and I'll have to say, 'I wasn't there – I was away'. Then I'll be left with bad feelings, though I like to think I'm wiser for it," he says. "There were loads of things I missed – every little thing – but the fact that now I can go and see mates, or Saturday night I can just go for a drink... People take things for granted so much."

important property update

Bulgaria Delays Outlawing of Property Cash Buys

Properties
New rules that envisage that all property transactions in Bulgaria must be carried out via bank transfer will come into force in the summer and not as of January 2010 as originally planned.
The delay is due to the parliament's failure to approve before the end of the year amendments to the country's Notary Act, which are still in the pipeline.
“The best case scenario is for the bill to be approved by the parliament at second reading at the end of January,” Iskra Fidosova, head of the judicial commission in the National Assembly, commented. “Most probably the law will start to be implemented not earlier than May or June,” she added.
There is hope that the new rules will help to reduce property fraud and money laundering, as well as ensuring that all fees and taxes owing to the state are paid.
Whilst the change to buying and selling was first mentioned a year ago as part of a bigger plan to reduce corruption in the property sector, it is only now starting to come to fruition.
As well as reducing corruption, it also aims to ensure that all fees and taxes owed to the state are paid, through the creation of a State Depositary Bank which would serve as a guarantee for all payments in the form of the state acting as custodian for deposits.
The legislative changes will require that both the vendor and the buyer specify their bank accounts for conducting a property deal. Alternatively, they could use the account of their notary public.
The conditions for depositing money into bank accounts as part of the deal will be specified by the respective sides in written agreements.
These legislative changes are seen as the first step to an all-out regulation of payment in purchase deals through a special law to be called Deposit Account Act.
There is also hope that the new laws may inspire more confidence from overseas property buyers.
But, there are risks to this new system, as sellers and buyers may want to avoid the new fee charged by the bank for servicing the transactions.
Thus, they may agree a lower price for the official transaction and then do a cash deal privately. This is common in France where the new system planned for Bulgaria is already in use.

The taxman cometh....

NRA Director: 21 Bulgaria Music Stars Guilty of Tax Evasion

Society
The Executive Director of Bulgaria’s National Revenue Agency (NRA), Krasimir Stefanov, has stated that 21 top Bulgarian musicians have been found to have discrepancies between declared income and their assets.
Of the 37 pop-folk and pop singers investigated by the NRA in December, 21 were revealed to have a discrepancy declared income and their assets. One unnamed singer is reported to have not declared any income while owning a property worth BGN 200 000.
Stefanov said that the aims of the ongoing investigations, “which do not immediately mean that the investigated people are guilty of any offense”, were to show Bulgarian society what harm undeclared taxes do. He said that after the recent investigation into Bentley owners an extra BGN 16 M had been added to the state budget. He also added that the aim of the investigation was not to throw a lot of people in jail.
Regarding the ongoing NRA investigation into a total of 261 Bulgarian top flight football players, Stefanov concluded that it was ridiculous that some of them declared a yearly income of BGN 3000. He added; “I hope that they will declare the loans from friends. I hope that public figures understand that if they want to live in this country they should pay their taxes.”

Again Strange but allegedly true !

BULGARIAN SWAPS 'ORIGINAL' MONET PAINTING FOR 2 TRACTOR LOAN
A painting alleged to be that of legendary French impressionist Claude Monet has been sold in Bulgaria for almost BGN 13 M after being put down as collateral for a USD 319 000 loan for two tractors.
Chude Georgiev, the original owner of the painting, stated that it is certainly authentic and worth EUR 24 M, but according to bank experts and a private bailiff it is fake and probably worth BGN 5000. The case is currently being dealt with in the Sofia City Court and the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office.
At an auction Thursday morning, the private bailiff Stoyan Yakomov, sold the painting for BGN 12,8 M to one of nine private buyers. The painting was given as collateral by Georgiev for a loan from First Investment bank to his friend Alexander Dimitrov. Dimitrov later bought two brand new tractors with the loan. (Georgiev is the leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Workers Party, which has participated several times in local and parliamentary elections and Dimitrov is a close friend of the Communist Finance - Belcho Belchev.)
Georgiev allegedly received the painting from his grandfather, a merchant from Vratsa. Much later he said that he realized that it was from the early period of Monet an took it to be certified. According to him, it was investigated by Western experts, who confirmed that the painting was an original Monet, and invented a name for it: ‘Walk in the mansion’. Georgiev then insured it with DZI for USD 8 M and for the same sum with British insurance company Lloyd's.
Georgiev also said that the Christie's auction house told him that the price of the painting is between USD 15-24. Bulgarian experts, however, including the director of the National Art Gallery Boris Danailov, are explicit that it is fake. They say that the canvas itself is produced in the Soviet Union 50-years ago, and gave it a market price of USD 5000 .
After Thursday’s auction Georgiev, who will receive most of the money from the sale, launched a case in the Supreme Cassation Prosecution he argues that Yakimov is working jointly with First Investment Bank and that the bidder is connected to them. He stated that they will then sell it on for a much higher price to “Western” art lovers. He had also previously tried to stop the auction taking place but failed.
Another theory is that Georgiev is connected to the unnamed bidder who has not yet officially paid the sum over to the bank, and therefore the false price would have stopped the auction. Georgiev is also thought to have recently found a buyer in France who wants to pay him EUR 7 M for the painting.

Overview

Dear Readers,

There are lots of posts I could have put on here regarding such things as the appointment of Rumiana Juleeva as Bulgaria's new EU Commissioner, the latest shennanigans in parliament,and further dire economic news, but I will confine myself to one piece of economic news that is just emerging.It appears that while Bulgaria is one of the worst affected economies there appear to be signs that a turnaround will happen next year.

Now please bear in mind that recovery is a slow as turning round an ocean liner (there were still over 7 million unemployed in the US in December 1941), but since this recession is basically created by disappearing credit, and therefore consumer confidence, it is not the same kettle of fish.

Let us hope so.

Winter is coming !

Its getting cold now, the last few nights and days have been chilly and tomorrow the snow is coming, according to the weather forecast.It appears that we will have a mild winter this year but, unless you love in a centrally heated place or one with air-con, every day the log fire has to be tended to, piled high at night and cleaned out and re-lit each morning.Coming from London this was a bit of a shock to the system, but you get used to the daily ritual plus the power cuts of varying length.Usually in this big village near a power station its only a few minutes or house, I dont envy the poor devils in isolated areas where it is far longer.

A wood supply for the winter is just over 200 pounds.Electric heating is, on the other hand, hideously expensive and bills of 100 pounds A MONTH  can easily be run up.Gas supplies for a gas central heating system are by large bottled gas containers and are about half as expensive as electric heating.

Generally speaking Bulgaria functions well unless there is very heavy snow and then things, inevitably, start to fall apart. Cities and towns get cut off and airports get closed.If anyone is considering travelling here from the end of December till the end of February please bear this in mind.

ET

BULGARIAN ACADEMY SCIENTISTS REPORTED TO BE IN TOUCH WITH ALIENS

Scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) have been reported to be in touch with extraterrestrial beings.
The Bulgarian Novinar Daily has reported that the Bulgarian scientists are currently working on deciphering pictograms which are said to have come in the form of the so called “crop circles” with which the aliens answered 30 questions posed by the BAS researchers.
“They are currently all around us, and are watching us all the time. They are not hostile towards us; rather, they want to help us but we have not grown enough in order to establish direct contact with them. They are ready to help us but we don’t know what to request from them in case of contact,” said Lachezar Filipov, Deputy Director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, as quoted by the Novinar Daily.
Filipov has said that even the Vatican had agreed that aliens existed. In his words, the humans are not going to be able to establish contact with the extraterrestrials through radio waves but through the power of thought.
He has stated that the human race was certainly going to have direct contact with the aliens in the next 10-15 years.
The deputy head of the Bulgarian Space Research Institute has also told the Novinar Daily that the extraterrestrials were critical of the people’s amoral behavior referring to the humans' interference in nature’s processes.
Filipov’s team is reported to be analyzing the 150 new crop circles which appeared around the globe in the past year.
The publication of the Novinar Daily about the BAS researchers communicating with aliens comes in the midst of a controversy over the role, feasibility, and reform of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which last week even led to the exchange of offensive remarks between Bulgaria's Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, and President Georgi Parvanov.

New Mayor in Sofia

Bulgaria's Ruling Party Candidate Fandakova Elected Sofia Mayor in Landslide - Exit Poll

Yordanka Fandakova (left) has been elected to succeed Bulgaria's Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov (right), as the Mayor of the capital Sofia. Fandakova's election is widely believed to have resulted from Borisov's active endorsement. Photo by BGNES

Yordanka Fandakova, the candidate of Bulgaria's ruling party GERB and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has been elected the new Mayor of the capital Sofia in Sunday's by-elections.

More information about Yordanka Fandakova is available HERE.

Fandakova, who is currently the Education Minister in the GERB government, has been elected in a landslide, according to the exit poll of Gallup International. In addition to Borisov's GERB, she has also been backed by the nationalist Ataka party and the rightist Blue Coalition.

Despite the record low voter turnout - 21,4%, Fandakova has won in the first round, and so no runoff will be held. The Sofia Mayor by-elections have been widely regarded as a race with clear outcome from the very beginning due to the huge popularity and public support for Prime Minister Borisov and the GERB party.

The first exit poll results show that Fandakova, who is widely seen as a protege of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, has won 65,6% of the cast votes.

Georgi Kadiev, the candidate of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, known as the "red yuppie", who has been seen as Fandakova's only serious competitor, has remained second with 26,5 % of the votes.

All other candidates have received a total of 7,9%.

With her election Sunday, Fandakova has become the first woman to be Mayor of Sofia, a fact described as an advantage by Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov.

The Bulgarian capital Sofia had to hold Mayor by-elections as former Sofia Mayor Boyko Borisov became Prime Minister after his party GERB won overwhelmingly the July 2009 Parliamentary Elections.

Borisov was himself first elected in by-elections in 2005, and then reelected at the regular elections in 2007. Under his administration in 2005-2009, Fandakova served as a Deputy Mayor of Sofia in charge of education, youth, culture, and science. She has been Minister of Education since July 2009.

Theatre news .....

Bulgaria Culture Minister Exposes Huge Draining, 'Turkish Theaters'

Domestic

Bulgaria's Culture Minister, Vezhdi Rashidov, presented Thursday his report for his first 100 days in office, including the results from inspections of the previous administration.

“A lot of money have been siphoned off from the cultural institutions from around the country such as theaters, which had been turned into “gray companies”, Rashidov explained.

A huge number of violations have been uncovered with respect to contracts for the repair of the buildings of cultural institutions, where usually much larger sums were spent than the market value. One example is the repair of the National Art Gallery.

“A donation of EUR 48 000 had been received for the renovation of 300 square meters on the top floor of the gallery. The money was specifically given for that job. In addition, BGN 140 000 were demanded from the Ministry for the same purpose. Our audit showed that BGN 60 000 were enough to get the job done. Where is the other money?” Rashidov said.

Another type of huge violations had to do with the leasing of property of cultural institutions around the country for ridiculously small sums of money.

Grave violations have been uncovered in what Rashidov called “Turkish theaters”, i.e. the theaters in the regions dominated by the ethnic Turkish party DPS (“Movement for Rights and Freedoms”), which was one of the three parties of the former governing coalition.

“For example, in one of those theaters we found that 76 people are on the payroll, that is a huge budget with no income whatsoever. There were only a couple of performances. At the same time, there was an amateur dancing troupe of 25 people whose only function was to dance “kyuchek” (i.e.Turkish belly dancing) upon the arrival of the DPS activists. The director was drunk all the time, and did nothing. He appointed his wife, his son, who is underage, his aunt, and several of his cousins to positions at the theater. What a wild gang, a?” declared Minister Rashidov, who is a renown Bulgarian sculptor of ethnic Turkish origin.

The Chief Secretary of the Culture Ministry, Stoyan Stoyanov, explained that the results from all of the audits carried out in the last three months had already been submitted to the Agency for State Financial Inspection, and from there they would go to the Prosecutor’s Office.

Among the successful projects of his first 100 days in office, Culture Minister Rashidov pointed to the optimization of the staff and the number of institutions within the Ministry, and the adoption of a new Working Rules Statutes.

Bulgaria and the 'fall' of communism

Yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of the collapse of the Communist regime.It was basically an internal coup organised by some communists to preserve their own power.To this day there are major connections between the old communist leadership (and their security apparatus) and politics and big business.
One reason Bulgaria had so many corruption and organised crime problems is the failure to come to terms properly with the communist period and its legacy.

Now finally it appears that the new government may be willing to address these issues and that Bulgaria may be evolving into a modern democracy.

Land Deals and Tax

Bulgaria Makes Bank Payment Mandatory for Real Estate Deals

Properties
Draft amendments to the Notaries Public Act are going to make bank payment mandatory for all real estate property deals in Bulgaria starting January 1, 2010.
The news has been announced by the government press service, which points out that this move is intended to curb money laundering by paying in cash for the purchase of property, and to counter real estate fraud.
The legislative changes will require that both the vendor and the vendee specify their bank accounts for conducting a property deal. Alternatively, they could use the account of their notary public.
The conditions for depositing money into bank accounts as part of the deal will be specified by the respective sides in written agreements.
These legislative changes are seen as the first step to an all-out regulation of payment in purchase deals through a special law to be called Deposit Account Act.

Uncle's comment:It is difficult to know how this will pan out but it basically means more tax as the correct value goes on the title deeds.It will also mean that the statistics for real estate may actually have some meaning.The flip side is that the party is over for tax avoidance.

Bargains Bargains !

Bulgaria Residential Property Prices Collapse by 28% in 2009 Q3

Properties
The prices of residential property in Bulgaria declined by an average of 28% in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the same period of 2008.
This becomes clear from data released Friday by the National Statistical Institute, which also show that the residential property prices around Bulgaria dropped by 5% in July-September 2009 compared to the second quarter of 2009.
According to the NSI, the average price of one square meter of residential property in Bulgaria in the third quarter of 2009 was BGN 1 021,45. The residential property prices are found to be the highest in the Black Sea city of Varna – BGN 1 770 per square meter, followed by the capital Sofia BGN 1 640,33, and the Black Sea city of Burgas – BGN 1 379,83.
In the third quarter of 2009, the residential property prices in Sofia dropped by 6% compared to the second quarter of 2009. The highest decreases are registered in the northern cities: Montana – 16,3%, Vidin – 10,1%, and Shumen – 10%.

Taxi News

The ongoing saga of over-priced taxis who seduce customers by mimicking other companies’ logos has entered a new stage of arbitration.

The controversy mostly affects new arrivals at Sofia Airport unfamiliar with the feud between longstanding taxi companies and those who imitate their logos and phone numbers but charge extortionate rates. The matter has now gone to court but remains unresolved.

As The Sofia Echo has previously reported, the "victims" are ripped-off clients and - in most cases - OK Supertrans taxi, a reputable company of many years standing that is one of two firms contracted to service the airport.

Some of the companies who imitate OK Supertrans’ logo are OK Superchance and OK Superlux. In one such case, in April this year, experts from the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) fell victim to unfair competition between different firms.

They took a taxi from the airport to central Sofia and were presented with a bill for 102 leva. The average bill should have been no more than 20 leva. OK Supertrans responded by alerting the Protection of Competition Committee (PCC) while clients chose to complain to the Consumer Protection Committee (CPC). As a consequence the PCC repeatedly imposed fines of hundreds of thousands of leva on the grounds of unfair competition. By contesting the fines in court, however, the "impostor" companies have managed to survive.

All taxi drivers in Bulgaria are entitled to charge any price they choose. Besides having their registration papers in order, they only have to display the tariff prominently on the vehicle. Unfortunately, by imitating other companies’ logos such drivers rely on unsuspecting passengers climbing into their taxis.

By the time the customer realises the scam, the bill is already high and the driver is fully entitled to demand payment. Protests about the logo resembling that of other firms are then a matter for the PCC and the CPC.

After extensive media coverage the issue reached boiling point in mid-October when the two organisations who claim to represent the taxi business held a meeting with the Transport Ministry. On one side was the recently-founded National Federation of Taxi Drivers in Bulgaria (NFTDB). Its chairperson is Yane Yankov, also head of OK Superlux, the firm fined 150 000 leva by the PCC for mimicking OK Supertrans’ logo. On the other side was the National Union of Private Carriers (NUPC), representing some of Sofia’s large taxi firms.

Both organisations asked the Transport Ministry to deal with the issue by changing the law. NFTDB demanded that every municipality should have the right to set one unified price for taxi companies in its region. The Transport Ministry and the NUPC, however, suggested that municipalities should be given the right to impose the maximum fare that cab companies would be allowed to charge. This, according to the ministry, would clamp down on cab drivers preying on unwitting foreigners and absent-minded customers.

Yankov responded with a news conference in which he accused the ministry of supporting the business of NUPC members. He asked for the resignation of the Ministry’s Car Administration Executive Agency head, Lyubomir Hristov and argued that rather than having maximum fares imposed on them, firms should be allowed to charge high prices as long as their cabs are painted in different colours so that clients can distinguish between rivals. The issue is yet to be resolved in Parliament.

Uncles Comment: If you go to Sofia airport, come out of the arrivals area and there is a taxi office for the proper company by the exit, they will take all your details and give you your drivers number and the taxi reg. number which will be waiting outside.
I dont understand why there is no mention of Varna airport where every taxi is a bandit, typically 160lv to Albena !.