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ATTENDING FUNERALS

  • On October 26th the EU Commission published its annual Monitoring report on Bulgaria’s progress to accession (Treaty signed in April 2005 and target but uncertain date 01.01.2007). The last sentence of the 77 page report reads : Finally, urgent action is required in… the fight against organised crime, fraud and corruption, if Bulgaria is to be ready for membership by the envisaged date. On that Wednesday morning at 9.15h a.m. ministers of interior and of justice were giving a press conference on how much the report’s findings were welcome and how soon recommendations would be fulfilled. TV records showed minister of interior suddenly rushing out of the hall having received a note that the second richest Bulgarian banker Mr. Emil Kiulev (approx. E 500 mln) had just been shot dead in Chicago-style in the centre of Sofia. It was the 8th public assassination within the last two months since this government was sworn in and the 65th within last five years. No convictions for any of them.
  • Two weeks earlier the Bulgarian parliament wrapped up the emergency adoption of a new Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) hoping in this way to soften the criticism in the forthcoming EU report. The rush triggered bitter media comments comparing Bulgarian elite with Alli Babba and the 40 thieves trying to open the EU treasury cave with the magic password “CPC, CPC”.
  • There is a general feeling among the population that the Bg Mafia actually enjoys the constitutional status of a church- the state does not interfere in its affairs but only creates conditions for its operations. It is almost always “organized crime against disorganized justice”. As if the tons of drugs that enter the country fly over the borders like birds with no “birds’ flu”. It is very hard for the ordinary Bulgarian to understand how government and parliament can be good but justice- bad. Who creates the laws for bad justice? If the country is in the grasp of criminal terror it needs international help to defeat it- and not to play the tragicomic grotesque of sending Bulgarian troops to fight terrorism around the world when home is under fire.
  • The EU report leaves open the option for postponing Bulgaria’s entry by one year for 2008. The rational of doing this is questionable if one views the situation as a gravely ill patient waiting for one more hour out of the emergency room to become fit for treatment. And some Bulgarians wonder whether such a delay would be a curse or a blessing- if nuclear reactors for cheap electricity work a year longer or the options for ethnic survival within EU are revisited. Bulgaria’s grave “secret” concern is its fatal exposure to migration from neighboring (EU?) Turkey that would wipe out the ethnic proportions and hence the Bg nation itself- “mincing it into ethnic meat for new geopolitical balls” as ultranationalists fear. The latter have even called “Let Turkey join Texas” and have suggested that the EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn should be equally excited for his native Finland’s survival prospects if Russia joins EU- to understand Bulgarian numerical concerns with no anti-Turkish prejudice.
  • Within the above headlines another type of silent but deadlier assassination took place which remained unnoticed by the news networks. Bg government decided to reintroduce the price fixing for cigarettes. It means authorities will again rule the price of cigarettes on the domestic market. The rational is that the price of imported cigarettes will be artificially fixed higher than domestic ones in order to protect local production from foreign competition. This is a deliberate assassination attempt on Bulgaria’s market economy image six months after signing the EU treaty and within the crucial EU monitoring months till next spring. It was committed on the day after the EU report was made public- no reaction from EU sources. The government is a coalition of three parties (socialists, royals and ethnic Turks) which are directly responsible for the failed privatization of the tobacco industry in January 2005. Now the bill for the collapsing branch has arrived and they want to subsidize it by consumer money for lower quality- be it for one year only but not to confront unpaid workers on the streets today. Yet the risk of social explosion is not gone.
  • Bulgarians have just been bombarded with drastic price increases of fuel, central heating, electricity, water, rubbish collection, cigarettes, alcohol, insurance, coffee, real estate taxes etc. They are much higher than the jump of oil prices and are reasoned by huge rise of excise tax. Like in best communist times the responsibility is referred to the west- this time to EU allegedly imposing those excise rates. EU is being widely used as an idol on whose altar common sense can be sacrificed with no questions. But why does not the EU impose a consumer income rise like the excise? The ordinary Bulgarian is helpless before the monopoly terrorism. Most if not all of his income is spent on bills for which he has no choice, no contractual freedom, no alternative. Fair competition authority does not answer the wake up call. The size of income spent on monopoly imposed prices is the measure indicator for individual economic freedom. This is the cancer cell of society because it teaches the child that parents’ money can be extracted by duress in a dead-lock – the alphabet of the future criminal despite any modern EU justice. Even if one decides to give up central heating (like many do) he will keep on paying 10% as a “facility charge”- politically free but financially chained. Why do we pay MPs even when they do not work? The joke answer: “A facility charge”. Many simply ignore the unaffordable bills. In Bulgaria the losses of the water supply, electricity and central heating networks are legally allocated to consumers through the price thus turning them into a kind of shareholders in the losses but not in decision making and in profits. A sign of desperation is the claim by a consumer protection body that Bulgarians live in a monopoly price concentration camp on whose doors it is written : “Zahlen macht frei” and “Jedem seine Rechnung”.
  • On October 29th by-elections for mayors were held in the capital Sofia and several other cities. Independent candidates who sincerely challenged the corrupt status-quo were simply blacked-out from media. To no one’s wonder the average turn out was 25%. An old cleaning lady in a Sofia public building being aware of her social irrelevance was quoted to say: “Let God keep us alive and healthy to attend their funerals”

November 2005

Valentin Braykov