Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
There are 240 fires burning in Bulgaria*, but the 240 MPs are going on summer vacation from August 1. The smoke from the burning houses, fields, forests does not reach the yellow paving stones. The lack of water, in which, according to the Green Movement, over 151,000 people live in 88 municipalities, does not worry the National Assembly either.
Instead of reviewing and reforming the units responsible for disasters and accidents, and rethinking their place and capacity in the context of acute climate challenges, MPs tell cynical stories from the podium about a trip by a party leader and a vlogger to Greece. They turn out to be fake, but they successfully yellow the political debate and reduce it to voyeurism on social networks.
Politics of a "fire extinguisher"
The political agenda is once again at odds with the problems of citizens. The parties have divided into camps as to which vote of no confidence to support, and also in their views on the anti-corruption commission and its future - to be one or not, for them this is "high politics", because it provides long-term influence. This topic is also important from an image point of view, it is media attractive and can be used to attack opponents or to demonstrate an anti-corruption position.
But some people want a lasting solution to long-standing problems to be found. Unfortunately, they do not live in big cities, but in small settlements, and politicians have calculated that they will not earn big dividends from "rural fires".
However, the problem has long been not only in the fires, but in crisis management. Frequent elections and the lack of sustainable governance lead to "fire extinguisher" style politics - politicians develop a mole vision, thinking in terms of months, not years. Topics such as disasters, climate resilience or water supply require reforms and long-term investments, which politicians avoid.
Empty promises
Bulgaria has a National Climate Adaptation Strategy and an Action Plan, but there is a lack of… actions, typically Bulgarian. And temperatures are rising - the "Copernicus" climate change service reported the summer of 2024 as the warmest in the history of the Earth and the hottest in Europe. Temperatures were over 1.54 degrees above the medium-term average for the period 1991-2020 and were the record from 2022. This year's summer may set new records - and more fires.
13 months ago, during the caretaker cabinet of Dimitar Glavchev, the National Assembly voted to take measures to eliminate the fires, obliging the government to plan and finance specialized aircraft for extinguishing fires for the needs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs preferred to launch public procurement for icons against road accidents (later suspended due to the scandal) and for cars and body cameras, which the parliament never made mandatory, but the value is an impressive 200 million leva. Although in February this year Minister of Defense Angel Zapryanov promised that the Air Force (AVS) will have doubled its firefighting capacity this year, with two helicopters again spraying water, just like last summer. Otherwise, Bulgaria maintains a total of three - two "Cougar" and one Mi-17, and none of them are specialized.
The operational capacity to deal with disasters remains severely limited, and therefore the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated, through which four helicopters from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and France and two aircraft from Sweden are arriving to extinguish the Bulgarian fires. "How many MPs will remember that Bulgaria is burning and that it will not be able to do without an air unit to fight fires?", former Deputy Minister of Ecology Toma Belev asked on Facebook.
But in addition to the air unit, other equipment is also needed, and why not an institution. According to WWF-Bulgaria, Greece has 90 aircraft and helicopters for firefighting, as well as hundreds of new vehicles for the fire service. By 2024, the country will have about 14,100 firefighters, an additional 2,500 are being hired for the summer season, and it has about 4,100 volunteers. According to ΕUROSTAT, there are about 6,500 firefighters in Bulgaria, and volunteers - under 300.
There is an Air Force concept for developing aerial firefighting capabilities, which proposes the purchase of 2-3 "Spartan" aircraft with firefighting systems with a capacity of 7,950 liters. However, no funds have been planned in the budget of the Ministry of Defense for 2025 - neither for aircraft nor for drones to provide information about the extent of the fires.
According to a WWF study, Turkey has a total of 776 fire observation towers, which are part of the early detection and notification system. 26 aircraft, 14 drones and 105 helicopters are on constant alert. An early warning meteorological system is also used, which generates three-day maps of fire risk based on wind, temperature and humidity data.
The President "reaps" rating
The head of state Rumen Radev did not fail to show empathy with the problems in welcoming foreign aircraft to help Bulgaria at the Plovdiv airport. Thus, he once again positions himself against the current political elites, who are not coping, emphasizing that it is critically necessary to have timely information about the occurrence of fires, more aircraft and firefighting vehicles. "I call on the government to get out of the mode of talking about the people, and to do something for the people. Not only with firefighting, but also with water supply."
But the deputies are accountable for one issue during the parliamentary control, as much as for their constituency. The Ministry of Interior has focused on deaths on the road, and the fires will pass when the summer is over. But the statistics show a serious increase - from 222 in 2010 they almost tripled the next, to reach an average of 474 for the 15 years studied by WWF.
That is why those who listen to the president's speech nod in agreement. "High" politics has a hard time meeting "low" problems - and among them ash.
*According to data from Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov