Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
The Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC), which controls public procurement, concessions, mergers and acquisitions, opens a chapter "New Beginning". After 9 years of dominance of the CPC by the GERB cadre Yulia Nenkova, the chairmanship is now taken by Rosen Karadimov, elected by the parliamentary matrix GERB, BSP, ITN and "DPS-New Beginning".
For the record - proposed by the BSP, Karadimov heads one of the most important regulatory bodies, in whose seven-member composition four "hold" GERB-SDF, BSP received another seat (if the chairman's seat is also counted as its seat), and ITN also has a representative. The guardian of competition and free market rules, who will be relied on to comply with them for the next 7 years, the term of the CPC, is another product of political consensus between systemic players.
Back in February, when his candidacy was put forward by the BSP-United Left, Karadimov was named by the DPS-DPS and the PP-DB as a person connected to Delyan Peevski, the leader of "DPS-New Beginning", sanctioned by the US and the UK for corruption. The current co-chair of "Yes, Bulgaria" Ivaylo Mirchev recalled then that "the old policy of the GERB-DPS-New Beginning alliance is that strange candidates associated with Delyan Peevski are brought in through smaller parties".
Who controls the "free market"
Known as the last leader of the Komsomol before the fall of the totalitarian regime, MP and Deputy Chairman of the SOS, right-hand man of the Prime Minister of the "triple coalition" Sergey Stanishev. After the fall of the BSP-NDSV-DPS cabinet in 2009, his institutional career stopped, only to start again in 2022, when President Radev's official cabinet brought him into the management of the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB). Later, he also headed its Supervisory Board, remaining in the post in the PP-DB government with Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov. And in the caretaker government of the former GERB cadre, Dimitar Glavchev was Minister of Innovation.
What can be expected from the new CPC? Its predecessor, managed by Yulia Nenkova, was known for ignoring the strong market position of "Lukoil Neftochim" - there were no clear findings of abuse of a dominant position. Public expectations for active control over the fuel market failed. And the CPC was also inactive when establishing cartels for food prices.
The new Commission for the Protection of Competition may have to approve a deal for "Lukoil" - if the investor is from an EU member state. In case the potential buyer is from Turkey, for example, the Interdepartmental Council for Screening Foreign Direct Investments will deal with it first.
Renewal of Regulators
"Renewal" of the CPC is being carried out according to the model by which the members of some regulators were replaced, which was carried out since March. Delyan Peevski, who has been formally sanctioned for corruption by the US and the UK, is not proposing any candidates. The result so far shows that the biggest winner is the formation with whose mandate the government is governed - GERB-SDF.
Boyko Borisov's party won the chairmen of the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) and the Energy and Water Resources Regulatory Commission (EWRC) Vasil Golemanski and Plamen Mladenovski. Radoslav Milenkov was elected for another term in the BNB as deputy governor, and the governor Dimitar Radev is also a GERB nomination. GERB also took over the position of NHIF governor, which went to Petko Stefanovski, who will be responsible for a budget of over 9 billion leva.
The former Minister of Finance in the first GERB cabinet, Simeon Dyankov, headed the Fiscal Council, to whose composition two more were elected, nominated by GERB - Lyubomir Datsov and Desislava Kalcheva. GERB nominations are also the two constitutional judges from the 4-member parliamentary quota in the Constitutional Court - Desislava Atanasova and Orlin Kolev. At the proposal of the former caretaker Prime Minister Glavchev, who is also the Chairman of the Court of Auditors, the "new majority" also elected his deputies.
Thus, political calculations and dependencies once again triumphed over professionalism and expertise. The election of Rosen Karadimov as head of the CPC is yet another proof that power over the market in our country is not gained through trust, but is distributed as shares in a coalition company.
The commission, which should be a shield against monopolies, cartels and backstage, is headed by a man with deep political roots and a biography marked by closeness to all the colors of the transition. So the question is not who will protect the free market, but who holds it.