Liberal International conference

· THE annual conference of Liberal International (LI) is being held in Sofia this year, opening officially on May 13.
Scheduled to speak at the formal opening were LI president Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck MEP, Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, Movement for Rights and Freedoms leader Ahmed Dogan, and the president of Senegal, Maitre Abdoulaye Wade. Saxe-Coburg’s National Movement Simeon II and Dogan’s MRF are the official hosts of the event, being held at the National Palace of Culture, NDK.
Items on the conference agenda include discussions on security in the Black Sea region, competition in a globalised world, foreign policy in the 21st century, the politics of fear, organised religion and its threats to a secular liberal state, and relations between Africa and rich nations. Delegates from government and opposition parties from many countries are attending, including Canada, Romania, Russia, the Netherlands, Estonia, Spain, Cambodia, Turkey, China, Belgium, South Africa, and Japan.

Blocking Sofianski

· THE head of the Sofia Municipal Council, Vladimir Kissyov, refused to sign Sofia mayor Stefan Sofianski’s request to go on leave to join the election campaign of the Bulgarian Popular Union.
Sofianski said the refusal was an act of “political racketeering and political fear”.
The motive for the refusal is that Sofianski would be absent when the municipality is meant to solve the problem of the refuse dump in Souhodol which the municipality earlier promised would be closed by June.
Sofianski’s UFD is part of the Bulgarian Popular Union coalition set up to run in the June 25 general elections in Bulgaria.

Saxe-Coburg awarded

· PRIME Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg has been given a Peace Award by the Together for Peace International Foundation, the Bulgarian Government announced on its website on May 10.
This is the second such award given to Saxe-Coburg, after the Path to Peace award he received in 2002.
The Together for Peace foundation is presided over by Maria Pia Fanfani, who has been involved in charity for decades in 71 countries, including Bulgaria.
At an official ceremony at the Italian parliament in the presence of speaker of the Italian chamber of deputies Pier Ferdinando Casini, the award was conferred to the Prime Minister’s son, Konstantin-Assen Saxe-Coburg, who expressed gratitude on behalf of his father and the whole family.
Among the awarded by the foundation are world leaders, political figures and heads of state – Boutros Boutros Galli, Yitzhak Rabin,Vaclav Havel, Rafik Hariri, Rajiv Gandhi, Michelangelo Antonioni, Sean Connery, Jose Carreras, King Hassan II and others.

New AUBG president

· THE interim president of City University of Seattle in the United States, Dr. W. Michael Easton, has been named as the new president of the American University in Bulgaria.
The appointment was announced by AUBG board chairman David Flanagan on May 11.
Easton will arrive to take up his post before the autumn 2005 semester.

European Competition Commissioner visits

· EU Competition Commissioner Nellie Kroes arrived on a two-day visit to Bulgaria on May 12.
During her visit, Kroes had talks with Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, European Affairs Minister Meglena Kuneva, Finance Minister Milen Velchev, Economy Minister Milko Kovachev and Commission for the Protection of Competition head Petko Nikolov.
The commissioner also had meetings with members of the Bulgarian business community and representatives of non-governmental organisations.

Private bailiffs

· IN terms of a new Private Judgment Enforcement Act, the second reading of which was approved by Parliament on May 10, the state may authorise private bailiffs to carry out compulsory collection of public debts, in addition to the collection of private debts. The law introduces a mixed system of public and private bailiffs. It will be up to a claimant to decide whom to approach, said the head of the parliamentary legal committee, Anelia Mingova.
An earlier version of the law envisaged that private debts be collected only by private bailiffs.
A private bailiff may appoint one or several deputy bailiffs. Under the bill, an Enforcement Chamber is to be established and all private bailiffs will be its members ex officio. The Justice Minister will exercise control over all private bailiffs and will order checks of their performance.

Passi calls for caution

· “THE topics of the Bulgarian contingent in Iraq and the Bulgarian medical professionals in Libya must not be politicised, and we only stand to gain if we keep our consensus on them,” Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passi said in a bTV interview on May 8.
“The subject of the Bulgarian presence in Iraq is closely related to national security, to the country’s strategic interests, to Bulgaria’s NATO and EU membership.”
He said he was not surprised by Parliament’s resolution on the withdrawal of the Bulgarian contingent before the end of this year.
“We are in Iraq in implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1546, and its mandate expires at the end of this year, so we reckon with this mandate,” Passi said. In his words, the decision has been co-ordinated with the coalition allies and had not come as a surprise to them. According to Passi, the correct way to deal with the case of the Bulgarian medics in Libya was the “road of concerted efforts with the EU and the US”.
In a separate development, a Libyan court has postponed until May 17 a hearing of the case of the 10 Libyan police officers accused of torturing the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian medic.

Stability Pact meets

· FROM May 16 to May 18, Bulgaria is hosting the annual meeting of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.
The conference will be held at the Kempinski Hotel Zogravski in Sofia and will have three round-table discussions. An official dinner will be hosted by Foreign Minister Solomon Passi. The three round tables will focus on “Democratisation and Human Rights”; “Economic Reconstruction, Co-operation and Development”; and “Security Issues (Security and Defence, Justice and Home Affairs)” respectively.