Bulgarian Telegraph Agency (BTA), 97-03-12

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From: Embassy of Bulgaria <bulgaria@access1.digex.net>

EMBASSY OF BULGARIA - WASHINGTON D.C.

BTA - BULGARIAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY

12 March, 1997

CONTENTS

[01] VICE PRESIDENT KAVALDJIEV ON CULPRITS FOR THE CRISIS, THE DEATH PENALTY, PRESIDENTIAL POWERS

[02] ECONOMIC COOPERATION PROTOCOL SIGNED WITH RUSSIA

[03] NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICE' FUTURE

[04] CHAMBER OF COMMERCE WANTS SIMPLER EXPORT PROCEDURES

[05] IMF'S DEPPLER IN BULGARIA

[06] AGRICULTURE MINISTER HRISTOV: GERMANY TO HELP BULGARIA IN EU GRAIN SUPPLY

[07] INQUIRY LAUNCHED INTO ALLEGATIONS ABOUT WAZ

[08] SUTHERLAND STUDIES INVESTMENT CLIMATE IN BULGARIA FOR GOLDMAN SACHS

[09] SWITZERLAND HELPS CONSERVE BIODIVERSITY

[01] VICE PRESIDENT KAVALDJIEV ON CULPRITS FOR THE CRISIS, THE DEATH PENALTY, PRESIDENTIAL POWERS

"After a Public Pardon Board was set up by a presidential decree, I shall pardon between ten and 15 ill prisoners," Kavaldjiev said. The presidential decree institutes the Vice President as chief of the Public Pardon Board. Kavaldjiev said that repeat offenders will not be pardoned during his term. He will study allegations of beatings and torture in prisons and police stations of which international human rights organizations have accused Bulgaria.

"I am against the death penalty and a possible lifting of the moratorium on it. We must crack down on crime. Murderers, rapists and racketeers cannot expect leniency from me," Kavaldjiev said.

A heated debate went on in the recently disbanded parliament and in society on the pros and cons of the death penalty over the past year. The death penalty has been force in Bulgaria since 1951, with 118 executions carried out until 1990. A moratorium was imposed on executions by an Act of the Grand National Assembly in July 1990. In 1996 Prosecutor General Ivan Tatarchev and then minister of the interior Nikolai Dobrev said the moratorium on executions should be lifted to combat the rising crime wave, more specifically street violence. These statements were also prompted by murders of police.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted a resolution in 1996 relating to the abolition of the death penalty. The document recommends that the former socialist countries should not lift the moratorium where it exists, or those sentenced should get a remission where executions are carried out.

Asked if Bulgaria should seek broad presidential powers, Kavaldjiev said: "The president's powers should be broadened somewhat because they are extremely narrow now." But he said he is opposed to Yeltsin- style presidential rule, in which the entire power is concentrated in the hands of the head of state.

[02] ECONOMIC COOPERATION PROTOCOL SIGNED WITH RUSSIA

Mr Lobov arrived in Sofia Monday on a two-day working visit. He led a delegation of Russian government officials and business persons. Mr Bozhkov and Mr Lobov co-chair the Joint Commission for Trade, Scientific and Technological Cooperation, whose agenda for a session due to take place this summer was also fixed by the protocol. The Russian delegation discussed trade and financial matters with a number of high-ranking Bulgarian officials and members of the business community.

"Bulgaria and Russia will remove the barriers to bilateral trade, and an intergovernmental memorandum to this effect will be drafted even before the Commission's session," Mr Bozhkov told reporters. Formation of a number of joint ventures in various fields is also envisaged by the protocol, he added. Measures will be taken to arrange the transportation of nuclear material across Bulgaria, and negotiations on shipment of spent nuclear fuel from the Kozlodoui Nuclear Power Plant back to Russia will be carried on.

The sides are planning to go ahead with the construction of new facilities for continued supplies of Russian gas to Bulgaria and for transshipment of Russian gas across Bulgarian territory. "Serious commitments have been assumed to complete the arrangement of a number of matters related to mutual financial claims," Mr Bozhkov said. There are also a number of other specific projects, which will be finalized by experts even before the summer session of the Joint Commission. "If we reach agreement on gas within a fortnight and sign a trade liberalization memorandum within one month, no declarations will be needed, everybody will realize that we have embarked on a new track," the Bulgarian Deputy PM said, answering a reporter's question.

Speaking at a joint news conference, Mr Lobov described the accommodations achieved as "businesslike and to the point." He singled out trade liberalization and the preservation and revival of two-way economic contacts as the most important points of agreement. "The list of planned activities may be extended shortly," the Russian Deputy PM assured his audience. "Russia will not repudiate its signatures on the accords," Mr Lobov said, commenting on a report of Interfax and the wire services that President Boris Yeltsin Tuesday dismissed the entire cabinet with the exception of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais.

The Russian Deputy Prime Minister repeatedly expressed satisfaction with his one-hour meeting with President Peter Stoyanov Tuesday and with the businesslike character of all his conversations during the trip. Mr Stoyanov promised assistance to the complete relaxation of Bulgarian visa requirements for Russian businessmen. "The President said it is important that mechanisms for a switch to a practically duty-free trade be set in motion even before the incumbent [Bulgarian] Government leaves office, and we liked this determination on his part," Mr Lobov said.

President Stoyanov expressed willingness to visit Moscow soon, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister said. "Russia attaches great importance to the forthcoming visit; we believe that both countries will benefit from any high-level meeting," Mr Lobov said.

[03] NATIONAL SECURITY SERVICE' FUTURE

Interviewed by "Continent" Tuesday, NSS acting Director Vladimir Manolov said the claims about the closure of a US department are preposterous. "NSS's work is not aimed against specific states: it fights special services, organizations and individuals, whose actions and policy threaten Bulgaria's national security," said Manolov adding, "We do not, and will not, work against states." He said a project for a new NSS structure has been introduced by the former Interior Ministry leaders and is approved by the their successors. It takes into consideration the priorities of the government and NSS. The draft project envisages reduction of senior positions by about 10 per cent. "However, the people that occupied them will stay in the Interior Ministry system and can still be helpful," said Manolov. There will be no new departments and the old ones will continue to operate, he also said.

The NSS will prioritize combatting corruption and is planning a special discussion to consider corruption-related issues, analyze the situation in the country and map out adequate measures. In reply to the question how far the tentacles of corruption have reached, Manolov admitted they had spread very high. "It is natural for a new government to try to cope with this problem," said Manolov, adding he hopes that the measures that are to be taken will have effect. There is a specialized NSS unit for combatting corruption within the security service; about ten days ago all NSS employees declared their incomes, he said. These are part of the measures implemented by order of Interior Minister Bonev to eliminate corruption. "There are no NSS employees who have committed abuses of office," he said in the interview.

Asked if there were other people sentenced for spying, related to the case of Turkish citizen Komuran Dogu ten days ago, Manolov stated that whenever a sentence for spying is issued, it is always made public. "This is something one reads about in spy stories only. The relations between Bulgaria and Turkey have been improving and it is absurd to think that we can trade small-time spies," Manolov said to the question whether it was true that Dogu would be exchanged.

The NSS acting Director was categorical that the political forces do not exert pressure on the security service and that there are no attempts to intervene in its work. In his view, the major threat to Bulgaria's national security are attempts to delay the country's transition to market principles.

[04] CHAMBER OF COMMERCE WANTS SIMPLER EXPORT PROCEDURES

The BCCI also suggests acceptance of EU customs declarations in importing goods in Bulgaria from the European Union. According to Bozhinov, this will reduce the chance of Bulgarian importers to put a lower value of imported goods in the related documents than the actual one to avoid the payment of high customs duty.

The BCCI is against antagonizing consumers and traders, Bozhinov said in connection with the checks on commodity exchanges and wholesale storehouses which the police has made more frequent of late. He said that traders' profiteering is an undoubted fact but the problem should be resolved by eliminating the conditions conducive to it rather than applying an administrative approach. In Bozhinov's view, traders who violate the law should be deprived of licence. The BCCI believes that peddling foodstuffs should be banned because it contradicts all standards of hygiene.

[05] IMF'S DEPPLER IN BULGARIA

This is Deppler's second visit to Bulgaria. During his first visit early last November he suggested to the then Socialist cabinet that a currency board be introduced. The present government and the IMF are discussing the parameters of a possible agreement under a currency board.

[06] AGRICULTURE MINISTER HRISTOV: GERMANY TO HELP BULGARIA IN EU GRAIN SUPPLY

This week Hristov is to send the German Ministry of Nutrition and Agriculture a list of seeds and chemicals needed for the spring sowing. Germany will raise this issue at the Brussels meeting and will seek US$ 20 million from the EU in support to sowing operations in Bulgaria.

The agriculture ministers discussed a possible DM 100 million credit for the import of plant protection chemicals and food processing equipment against export of Bulgarian agricultural products. Hristov stressed at the meeting that if Germany insists the credit be guaranteed solely by Bulbank, the foreign trade bank, the project may not materialize. He suggested other potential guarantors such as Central Cooperative Bank, First East International Bank, United Bulgarian Bank or Hebros Bank. Germany named Bulbank as the sole guarantor of the DM 100 million credit agreed back in 1992. In view of the current foreign exchange crisis, however, Bulbank cannot do this, experts said.

A short- and a long-term programme for agricultural cooperation were also on the agenda of Hristov's visit. It includes projects for milk control and sugar beet growing, as well as for the privatization of Bulgarian sugar refineries. Hristov went to Germany on Monday. He told Deutsche Welle over the phone that German investors might be interested in Bulgaria's food industry. "Germany can invest in fruit and vegetable processing and flour milling," he said after conversations with his German counterpart.

"As to Germany's participation in the privatization in agriculture and the food industry, I believe some units are of interest, though privatization in the wine industry for example has a long way. I promise that everything for sale will come under the hammer on equal terms. German investors are welcome," said Hristov.

[07] INQUIRY LAUNCHED INTO ALLEGATIONS ABOUT WAZ

[08] SUTHERLAND STUDIES INVESTMENT CLIMATE IN BULGARIA FOR GOLDMAN SACHS

Mr Sutherland is pleasantly impressed with the attempts to liberalize Bulgaria's economy and with the determination to press on with changes in the economic sector. "We don't have interests in investing for the time being," he told reporters after the meeting.

Asked whether his company is interested in the sale of the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company (BTC), Mr Sutherland answered that, for the time being, this is not in the order of the day. In 1996 the New York City-based Goldman Sachs, which is the largest private US financial services company, bid for a consultancy contract for BTC's partial privatization.

Before joining Goldman Sachs, Peter Sutherland was director general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the World Trade Organization.

[09] SWITZERLAND HELPS CONSERVE BIODIVERSITY

The first phase of this programme, conforming to the priority of the National Strategy for Environment Conservation, is to be completed within several months, and the Bulgarian authorities are to take over the management of the protected wilderness tracts. The first phase included joint development of ten projects for biodiversity conservation: Central Balkan Range, Strandja, Eastern Rhodopi Mountains and the Kaliakra, Kamchia, Ropotamo, Lake Atanassovsko, Shabla and Dourankoulak wetlands.

Extremely valuable scientific information has been collected, and various models have been elaborated for management of the protected areas, and specific plans for action have been prepared. Over 470 Bulgarian experts have been trained to work according to these plans.

Deputy Environment Minister Rouslan Serbezov expressed Bulgaria's readiness to take part in the second phase of the programme.

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