Emergency services are recovering the corpses of flood victims. A family that was looking forward to a wedding instead finds itself preparing for a funeral. Acres of crops and forests, already shrivelled by drought, have been scorched by a swathe of wild fires. Friday night television viewers are confronted by the spectacle of drunken foreign youths slurring about their appreciation of Bulgaria’s cheap liquor.

Leadership and responsibility by Bulgaria’s authorities, and a preparedness to act on warnings, could have resulted in a different picture.

It is just a few years ago that summer and autumn floods caused millions of leva damage in Bulgaria. Clearly, there were lessons to be learnt there, but they appear not to have been absorbed. After the deluges of 2004 and 2005, there was much talk about clearing riverbeds and other practical and achievable actions to stave off the worst consequences of what is unquestionably an inevitability of nature. Yet it appears that little, or in some cases nothing, has been done. Uninsured and with scant prospect of meaningful state assistance, the country’s poorest again find themselves left to mop up and go forward as best they can. Is there a way to make the Government understand, and act on the understanding, that floods will come every year, but there is an interval during the changes of seasons in which steps can be taken to ameliorate the consequences?

Much media attention has been given to a road death and serious injuries that resulted, allegedly, from a well-known sports star being drunk at the wheel of a powerful luxury vehicle. The attention given to the story, which saw a young man called Petar Petrov turned from a prospective groom into a corpse, has overshadowed the large number of other road deaths and serious injuries. As ever, various talking heads have rushed forward with various proposals made in front of media microphones about new laws and stricter enforcement of traffic rules. This has become an annual ritual as the summer road carnage proceeds. Yet traffic enforcement continues to consist of static deployments at potentially lucrative points along the road, and reckless and downright stupid driving continues unchecked. Is there a way to make the Government understand, and act on the understanding, that driving habits in this country are routinely putting everyone on the road at risk of death and serious injury, and the time is overdue for strict enforcement of road rules?

The Government dragged its feet on responding to serious concerns about the impact of drought on crops, and now farmers are in deep trouble and thus too the nation’s breadbasket. Prices are going up sharply and the authorities are reaching for a band-aid. The commission of prices, of which nothing has been heard since it was formed to deal with concerns about the impact of EU membership, has been roused temporarily from its comatose state, into which, we suspect, it shall soon slip back. Is there a way to make the Government understand, and act on the understanding, that it has a responsibility to act timeously to support agriculture, not to intervene in the free market, but to enable an affordable supply of staple foods and a guarantee of social stability?

Bulgaria was warned that continuing to market itself as a lowest-common-denominator affordable destination would reinforce the market trend of a certain kind of tourist coming here for cheap thrills. The country would be well advised to energetically develop various kinds of specialised and alternative tourism. Those who fly in for the sake of gallons of cheap liquor mean nothing for spreading the economic benefits of a tourism industry. Serving only as a strain on law enforcement authorities, health care staff and perhaps even embassy officials, booze tourists take off again, never to return and with nothing more than a blurred memory of Bulgaria. Is there a way to make the Government understand, and act on the understanding, that reform, consolidation and efficiency of tourism control authorities is required, that intelligent and dynamic marketing of the country’s attractions is needed - as much as a radical reorientation of Bulgaria’s current liquor-slicked tourism one-way street is needed?