These are some of the top headlines in Bulgarian newspapers on July 22 2008. The Sofia Echo has not verified these stories and cannot vouch for their accuracy

Politics

- The European Commission (EC) softened the tone in its interim report on Bulgaria, Monitor daily said. Three factors contributed to that: the creation of the State Agency for National Security, the work of Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Plougchieva and the planned reforms in the Interior Ministry, Monitor said.

- Opposition parties were planning to launch protests and block the Parliament’s building in the autumn of 2008, according to Monitor. The parties started negotiations on the protest after, on July 20, Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria leader Ivan Kostov called for a political strike.

Social

- Despite the campaigns for making 10 per cent of the state administration redunant, announced by the Cabinet annually, all ministries had increased the number of their employees since 2006, Sega daily said.

- Bulgaria’s authorities allocated nearly 107 million leva for the purchase of two second-hand airplanes, Monitor said. The purchase was made necessary by the recent mechanical failure of one of the two Government planes, the Soviet-made Tu-154.

Economy

- The new zoning plan of Tsarevo municipality on the Black Sea envisioned building up the entire coastline of Strandja natural park, Dnevnik daily said. The newspaper quoted environmentalist organisation To Sustain the Nature as saying that more than nine million sq m of the park would be built up.

- The party’s over, Dnevnik said, commenting that the glory days of the Bulgarian property market was over. The big real estate companies conceded that the prices would stop rising with the pace from the past three years and that supply already exceeded demand.