Press review

published on 12/28/16 10:28 AM

Photo: Maria Peeva

Two days after Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova stated that members of terrorist groups would attempt to cross over into Bulgaria on their way to Western Europe, a Dutch woman was apprehended at Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint on suspicion of terrorism, Sega newspaper writes on its front page. This is not the first time terrorism suspects have been apprehended, but it is the first time a suspect has been arrested in an attempt to cross over in the opposite direction – towards Turkey, the newspaper adds.

“Living on the cheap in Greece – forget about it in 2017”, reads a headline carried by Trud newspaper. Excise duties and taxes are going up in Greece as of 1 January, 2017, the paper adds, and that will mean a hike in the prices of fuels, cigarettes, coffee, beer etc. What effect the new, higher taxes will have on the price of package tours is yet to be seen, a member of the Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agents comments for Trud. At this point the number of Bulgarians who have made early holiday bookings in Greece has doubled.

Monitor warns that a flu epidemic is in the offing in eight regions of Bulgaria. The Regional Health Inspectorate comments for 24 Chassa that dozens of people in Plovdiv have been coming down with influenza. Besides the flu, people have been contracting other respiratory diseases and viral infections. More and more people have been calling emergency rooms, some have been hospitalized.

In an interview for 24 Chassa, Vasil Velev, chairman of the Industrial Capital Association in Bulgaria proposes that young people graduating from university be obliged to work five years in the country and if they choose to leave Bulgaria – that they reimburse any scholarships they have received, or that their employers pay transfer rights. There is an acute shortage of any kind of workers on the labour market, he said, and they have to be imported, even from Bangladesh and Vietnam.

Regarding Ministry of Education data that there are close to 900,000 children studying foreign languages in Bulgaria, Standart writes that Russian is the second most popular language after English, with German coming third. Almost 2,000 children in the country have chosen to study Chinese or Japanese, and the paper comments that this is probably their parents’ choice as a good career opportunity.

President Rosen Plevneliev calls on Boyko Borissov’s outgoing government to nominate a candidate for European commissioner, because otherwise this decision may have to be made after the early parliamentary elections, writes Capital. From the interview the president gave for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Capital highlights his thesis that consensus on the choice of Bulgaria’s next European commissioner must be reached by the dominant political forces.

Compiled by Stoimen Pavlov

English version: Milena Daynova

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