The week: Bulgarian Vikings strike Sweden, The last train for 2026 eurozone, Bulgarian Patriarch loves Russia

Sea stories are always full of challenging weather and broken ships (and drunken sailors, to be honest), so this shouldn't have been much of a news story. Unfortunately for the crew and the company, there was something in the water between Gotland and Latvia which got damaged: a fiber cable.

Now, there is no one saying Vezhen tore the cable yet, but it happened to pass above it when it got ripped apart and it also happened to have a broken anchor when the Swedish coast guard came looking for it.

The company admits "it is possible the ship's anchor might have cut the cable", which brings internet to Latvian TV and Radio operator. Yet this was done completely unintentionally, they claim. The Swedish police are currently investigating, so we won't know much for now. But here are my 5 cents on the matter.

This is an especially bad run for Navibulgar. In the past two years one of its ships was arrested in Ireland for 500 tons of cocaine on board and another was seized by rebels in Yemen. Having one of its carriers cut a cable in the most contested sea-basin between Russia and NATO, where 3 other similar incidents happened in the space of one year, is the cherry on top of this disappointing line of events. I do agree it looks very suspicious, when viewed from Sweden.

Yet I don't believe that the ship was acting intentionally, or that it is part of a Russian subversive operation. Navibulgar (where the Bulgarian state holds a 30% share) is a very profitable company. In the past 3 years it had between 500-700 million levs of revenue (250-350 million euro) and raked in hefty profits of well above a 100 million euros.

Like every other shipping company, it operates globally and faces a lot of problems, because honestly, it's a crazy world out there. But to enter into a shady agreement to produce a low-level sabotage against a friendly country seems a mad thing to do, especially when you consider that the private owner - Kiril Domuschiev, has been tip-toeing in the past several years, to avoid American blacklists.

But here's another possibility. When you have a ton of ships and hundreds of sailors, it's hard to control them all. That's why some of them might traffic drugs. Others might drink and gamble. The third might just be plain stupid. You never know. Ask the Vikings.

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Politics this week:

Enter the supposed London spy ring that is currently standing trial in the Old Bailey. Reading the testimonies, it is very hard to not crack a smile. For example, a few weeks ago it turned out that the supposed head of the operation - Biser Dzhambazov - was arrested while in bed with the other alleged spy, Vanya Gebereva. That was not known to the third alleged plotter and Dzhambazov's girlfriend Katrin Ivanova. A real Balkan James Bond!

Iron clad or kind of rusty?

On Wednesday, things went even further - according to the Prosecution, they managed to extract from Ivanova confessions of "very close links" between Dzhambazov and none other than the President of Bulgaria, Rumen Radev. The Prosecution based this claim on a text message by Dzhambazov to another of the group, in which he said that he had a "very strong" and even "iron clad" relationship with Radev, and two other senior Bulgarian politicians - both of whom were ministers at some point. There is, however, absolutely no proof of such "relations", except for the boasting of the guy himself.

Rigging elections, though, is not exactly spying

ECONOMY

It expects the rate to go up this year due to more expensive water, electricity, and excise taxes. After falling below 2%, inflation in Bulgaria has been gradually rising and the trend looks set to continue in the coming months. By the end of this year, consumer price growth will accelerate to 3.5%, the Bank has said in its latest macro forecast, which was published on Wednesday.

Euro is still a possibility

However, the BNB believes that as early as January the country could meet the price stability criterion needed to join the euro area, and that it will continue to meet it until the end of the year.

Gearing up, or not really

GERB's return to power occurred on a wave of accusations against all previous finance ministers, but mostly - the one led by Assen Vassilev - that the state budget is running a huge deficit, which jeopardizes Bulgaria's eurozone application and the state finances as a whole.

So they did what you obviously do in a deficit: proposed a tax cut for their favourite sector - restaurants, and a huge boost to police salaries. Despite public discontent, GERB leader Boyko Borissov announced on Wednesday that he was "committed" to return the lower VAT of 9% for restaurants - something already proposed by his "opponent" Peevski. Thus, the two will deprive the budget of about 300 million levs in 2025 in favor of restaurateurs. And if that's not enough, the Internal Minister Daniel Mitov (GERB) also put forward a proposal to increase salaries in the police by a whopping 50%.

Figures:

The sum successfully secured by the government in the first month of 2025 through two new government bond issues.

7

BUSINESS

The consumer lending specialist bank plans to issue bonds structured to meet the requirements of the MREL instruments in both Bulgaria and Romania and/or Greece. The amount sought for 2025 will be between 60 and 80 million euro, the institution said.

Startup

The Bulgarian software company for industrial equipment maintenance attracted an investment of 640,000 euro from the Sofia Angels Ventures fund and the fast-moving goods manufacturer Ficosota. With this investment, the total amount of external investment in the company has reached 1.3 million euro.

E-mobility

Hours after the Estonian scooter hire company announced the launch of its service in Plovdiv with a fleet of 300 vehicles, the local administration kicked it out "due to the applicant's lack of information about joining the Electric Scooter Memorandum." There is also no way of applying for this Memorandum and hence, no way to enter the market. Go figure.

ENERGY

The Electric System Security Fund (ESSF) needs 917 million levs to cover the shortfall in revenue it was supposed to collect, according to the response of the ex-Energy Minister Vladimir Malinov to a WCC-DB MP. The money will most likely come from the state coffers, as a similar proposal was made and passed in the previous version of the 2025 budget. The hole in the EUSF resulting from wrong forecasts is about to seriously affect the energy sector - and the state deficit.

BRUSSELS

Competitiveness - The 2025 Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report identified key issues including high energy prices, difficulties in commercializing research, and skilled labor shortages, while noting that EU labor productivity lags behind the US but outpaces the UK and Japan.

The solution? - The European Commission unveiled a new "European Roadmap" on Wednesday, focusing on innovation, decarbonization, and security. The plan includes a major reform to reduce administrative burdens for businesses and the creation of a "Competitiveness Fund" to finance projects based on common EU goals. In energy and climate, the EC will present a new industrial deal, measures for lower electricity prices, and review key regulations such as the carbon border tax this year. The Green Deal will be modified but not abandoned.

Space Race The European Union is gearing up to launch an aggregation platform for space launch services within the next two years, as part of its strategy to boost its competitiveness in the space sector. This move comes at a crucial time for the bloc, which has only recently regained autonomous access to space after relying on Elon Musk's SpaceX for several months to launch satellites.

WATCH OUT FOR

Asked previously if he agreed with the position of his late predecessor that Russia was the aggressor, Daniil chose not to answer. Trump, he said, would restore normality to the world.

Vassil Terziev

The mayor of Sofia decided he's going to personally sign off very big new construction project in the city. Sofia, he said, seems lost in development and order is needed. He has, however, still not announced a competition for a chief architect.

Location:

Where the country's last Unilever factory just closed down. Turns out the multinational doesn't really like producing ice-cream in Bulgaria. Denny was bought by Unilever in 2018, but now is going to shut because of restructuring in the company. Unofficially, sources say there was a constant loss and problems with the workforce. This won't affect the market very much, yet there are only smaller local producers remaining.

Date

All the latest topics and forecasts in the energy sector that interest you will be discussed at the Energy Summit 2025 conference, which Capital weekly organizes for the third consecutive year on 25 February at the Sofia Event Center. Check out the program, the speakers and the timetable here - and don't forget to secure your place.

Zen of the week

Peevski takes on Soros

The name of the much maligned financier and philanthropist who invested millions in order to make post-Communist Eastern Europe a more open society, following the teachings of his professor Karl Popper, is once again being vilified by local politicians. MRF-New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski threatened on Thursday in the National Assembly "an investigation" into the dark dealings of Soros, because "these individuals, in addition to the NGO sector, have gradually been infiltrated into the administration, educational institutions, political parties, the judiciary, the media and business, which has created conditions for covert or overt influence over the main socio-political and economic processes in the country." Given the nature of Peevski's own rise to power, we suggest Freud might have a thing or two to say about that.