Hristo Monov, who took office as the chief executive of Bulgarian state-run railways BDZ, promised tighter discipline in the ranks of the company's employees, particularly concerning the safety regulations.

Talking to reporters at his first news conference as BDZ chief on March 14, Monov said "employees had the wrong idea about democracy", as quoted by mediapool.bg. However, he declined to outline the specific steps that would be taken in that direction.

He will also have to appoint five new top managers to replace the ones that were sacked earlier this week together with Monov's predecessor on the job, Oleg Petkov.

The six managers were fired for not ensuring that passenger safety standards were observed properly, causing the death of nine people on the Sofia-Kardam train on February 28.

The fire started at night in a couchette carriage, which had 35 people in it at the time, and then spread to a sleeping coach with 27 people. It lasted about 15 minutes but it was enough for nine people to lose their lives in the flames. Investigators are working on three main possible reasons for the fire: terrorist attack, accident and criminal misconduct. So far no one had assumed any kind of responsibility for the incident.