On Friday the Central Electoral Commission announced the final distribution of mandates in the next parliament - and yes, Kapital Insight's calculations were right - you can see them here. Meanwhile, political maneuvering continues, both behind the scenes and up front. MRF (which protesters branded as big an evil as GERB last year) announced it would back an anti-GERB coalition of Slavi Trifonov's "There is such a people" party, Democratic Bulgaria and "Stand up! Thugs out," despite - or because of - their declared disdain for the ethnic party's shadowy influence. Now the government propaganda machine will have a field day bashing the three opposition parties for getting this unsolicited support.
Government will not send its recovery plan to Brussels: Donchev
Outgoing deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev said in an online discussion on Friday that this government won't file its draft plan for sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 crisis with the European Commission. Instead, it would entrust it to its successors. "We spoke to Commission representatives, who were kind enough to show understanding and extended the deadline," he said, adding that for an outgoing cabinet to file a recovery plan to be implemented over the next 5-6 years would be "dishonest." Mr Donchev, however, added that the plan has already undergone three cycles of revisions after feedback from Brussels. Bulgaria will receive about 6 billion euro of funding through the mechanism, amounting to a quarter of all recovery funds until 2030.
Industrial manufacturing and construction down 3,4 and 4,2% compared to February 2020:NSI
New data from the National Statistics Institute (NSI) shows that Bulgaria's industrial manufacturing and construction sectors shrunk by 3,4 and 4,2 percent on an annual basis in February. A closer look shows that the construction sector was hit by a decrease of 7,8 percent in office and residential construction, while the government-driven road construction is actually up 0,8 percent. The decrease in manufacturing is driven by a drop in energy generation and transit sector (down 4 percent) and the processing sector (down 4,6 percent), as well as a free-fall in drinks manufacturing (43 percent) dressing of leather (25 percent) and machine tools installation and maintenance (15,8 percent).
Fuel sales down 15% compared to February 2020, prices up 5 euro cents
Sales of gasoline and diesel fuels in Bulgaria also suffered in the year of pandemic restrictions, which also curbed travel, NSI said. In February 2021 the sector marked a 15,1 percent decrease of revenues compared to the same month in 2020. Despite that, the price of the most common type of gasoline leapt by 10 stotinki, or 5 euro cents, compared to last year.
On Friday the Central Electoral Commission announced the final distribution of mandates in the next parliament - and yes, Kapital Insight's calculations were right - you can see them here. Meanwhile, political maneuvering continues, both behind the scenes and up front. MRF (which protesters branded as big an evil as GERB last year) announced it would back an anti-GERB coalition of Slavi Trifonov's "There is such a people" party, Democratic Bulgaria and "Stand up! Thugs out," despite - or because of - their declared disdain for the ethnic party's shadowy influence. Now the government propaganda machine will have a field day bashing the three opposition parties for getting this unsolicited support.
