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The Mayor of Pomorie and the Regional GERB at the epicenter of an international scandal

EU citizens are left without electricity and water in 2025, the local government refuses to protect the public interest

Май 12, 2025 17:00 1 150

The Mayor of Pomorie and the Regional GERB at the epicenter of an international scandal  - 1
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See from which beach the Mayor of Pomorie Ivan Aleksiev and the Minister of Tourism Miroslav Borshosh will open the summer tourist season for the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast!

From the beach in front of the closed aparthotel complex “Sunset Resort”!

Ivan Aleksiev announced it personally today. He recalled this on "Facebook" Stoyan Tonchev

A magnificent image for tourism in Bulgaria - will a closed 5-star complex in Pomorie be the face of Bulgaria in 2025, or fuel oil on the beach and in the sea, Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria?

Read Bivol's publication:

The international five-year saga with the now ghostly, deserted and crumbling 5-star holiday mega-complex “Sunset Resort”, with a total developed area of 115,000 m2 at the entrance to the third largest city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast – Pomorie, is entering a new phase.

Hundreds of apartment owners from different countries – Bulgaria, Great Britain, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, etc., are affected due to the presence of a common electricity and water meter for the entire hotel complex. And in 2025 they cannot use their properties due to interrupted electricity and water supply, and directly insist that the mayor of Pomorie Municipality Ivan Aleksiev take a leading role in the process of resolving the case, by assisting in the opening of individual accounts for the accounting of electricity and water consumed by each apartment in the complex.
The case in Pomorie is of an international nature because it concerns people of different nationalities and has an extremely negative impact on the image of the city as a tourist destination. It has been presented to the European Parliament and the European Commission as an example of the lack of rule of law, legislative gaps, violation of European legislation, local racketeering, serving private interests and unacceptable living conditions in the 21st century in a member state of the European Union. Until now, apart from provoking a public scandal with former MEP Claire Daly in 2020 (here and here), who then personally arrived in the Black Sea city to see what was happening on the spot, the city's mayor Ivan Alexiev, who is also the regional chairman of the ruling GERB party for the Burgas region, has been suspiciously passive. Over the years, Alexiev has publicly argued his non-involvement by saying that the issue is of a civil law nature and that his hands are almost tied. In reality, this is far from the case, because not resolving the problem in time brings not only negative social, economic and image consequences for the citizens of the seaside resort of national importance, which contradict the public interest, but also political negatives - for Bulgaria and the government, because it has been put on the agenda again, but this time on the desk of the municipal multi-mandate mayor of GERB Ivan Alexiev. And urgent action and categorical political and managerial decisions are required, because “Sunset Resort” is collapsing, the green areas and trees in it are dying and it is about to turn into a huge concrete ulcer at the entrance to Pomorie.

The lack of protection of the public interest is justified by a civil law dispute

Literally, the official email of the mayor of Pomorie Ivan Aleksiev is addressed by dozens of letters from various owners of apartments in the hotel complex “Sunset Resort”, with which they make specific requests to the mayor. The megacomplex has been completely closed since the fall of 2022. , hundreds of workers and employees then become unemployed, it does not bring income to the municipal treasury in the form of a tourist tax, it has the largest bed base (about 3,000) in the city, there is no tourist flow from it, which stimulates local business, joining the civil turnover.

Therefore, apartment owners are seeking assistance in opening individual electricity and water bills for their apartments, thus guaranteeing that the complex will be maintained and inhabited year-round, and not just in the summer season, when the hotel part is operating.

They point out that they have a problem with the owner of the land and infrastructure - investor Boyan Bonev, who does not grant them the right of passage to open individual bills for household use. At the same time, the complex has an interrupted power supply due to unpaid bills and is uninhabited. Apartment owners believe that there is a lack of transparency in the spending and reporting of the collected maintenance fee (15 euros per square meter) and refuse to pay it, and there is also the burden of industrial electricity for private homes, which, according to their claims, was stopped after the active summer season.

The civil dispute - who owes whom what money, or does not owe, for maintenance fees and electricity and water bills, is within the competence of the Bulgarian court and must be resolved there. Outside of it, the case has socio-political and socio-economic dimensions that require urgent intervention by the local authorities, responsible for the reputation, management and development of the city of Pomorie.

On his page on “Facebook”, the mayor of Pomorie municipality from GERB Ivan Aleksiev announced on January 10, 2025, that he is opening a new online column for citizens - “You ask -ndash; the mayor answers”.

Its host will be Elena Ivanova, who is the regional PR of DPS – NEW START for the Burgas region and the Agency “Road Infrastructure” - Burgas. The format, which will be broadcast on Facebook, was launched on January 29 this year with the aim of – “facilitating communication on all topics concerning the municipality of Pomorie”. One of them is definitely “Sunset Resort”, judging by the dozens of emails sent in different languages to its official email by apartment owners in the complex.

Is Sunset Resort being deliberately destroyed and whose interests does the “inability of the local government” serve?

“There are things that are unbelievable. The incapacity of the local government is very impressive”, he stated in 2023. about the case in Pomorie, German MEP Peter Jahr from the European People's Party (EPP), quoted by Club “Z“.

The lack of desire on the part of the mayor of Pomorie Ivan Aleksiev to find a solution to this issue for years can also be interpreted as putting private interest before public interest. “Sunset Resort” is closed and is being demolished, thus the price of the apartments is going down, and hundreds of owners cannot use their properties. And is this not purposeful? According to unofficial information, the owner of the land and the most apartments in it - Boyan Bonev, has offered to buy out the apartments of those affected by the lack of individual electricity bills for a modest 1000 euros/sq. m. A price that does not correspond to the real price for properties in this part of the Black Sea coast, for apartments in an impressive residential and hotel complex, located on the first line from the beach and the sea.

It is striking that in Boyan Bonev's patrimony, in addition to the non-working aparthotel, there is also another abandoned mastodon of rough construction, located in the area of \u200b\u200b“Sunset Aquapark”, part of the “Sunset Resort”.

Thus, the central entrance to Pomorie, on both sides of the roadway, is gradually starting to finally turn into a “Graveyard for ghostly buildings”, instead of the face of the city being shiny, neat, breathing life and welcoming with a feeling of prosperity, luxury, high-class tourist products and services, attracting wealthy tourists.

The bad and the good manager

The problem with the crumbling and uninhabited buildings, structures and abandoned rough constructions in Pomorie is not solved with the “Sunset Resort”, private investors and civil law disputes, but also includes the abdication of the local government from taking a categorical position in the public interest. An example of a bad manager is the Municipality of Pomorie itself.