Maxim Behar is in the show "Cross point" season 2 on Nova TV speaking to the host Mikhail Dyuzev on the topic, "The communications expert's point of view"

Maxim Behar and the host of "Cross point" discuss parliamentary support for the Denkov-Gabriel cabinet, budget to cover flood damage and Bulgaria-Romania's entry into Schengen

Host: Hello Bulgaria, wherever you are, you are watching "Cross point" the show where news gets its first commentary. Today, the leaders of the two major coalitions in the parliament exchanged sharp words about the assemblies and the floating majorities. Is parliamentary support for the Denkov-Gabriel cabinet decreasing? All about it in just a moment. Our guests are already in the studio. Lawyer and writer - Alexander Shpatov. Communications expert – Maxim Behar. And economist and journalist - Mihail Krastev. Due to bills and hearings in committees, the second force in the parliament came out with a strong reaction against the first. Kiril Petkov hinted at an end of this national assembly, and Boyko Borisov countered that, in fact, it was his formation that made sacrifices.

Kiril Petkov: Why does “GERB-SDS” use alternative majorities to block important things from society? There is no way that this parliament and this government can continue and have a political stability and longevity if “GERB” continues with the floating majorities, so that we are almost like a “fig leaf” in the front, and they are in the back for the important things for society to push through with other majorities. They are introducing a huge risk into the political system and if that's what they think is going to happen, we simply won't accept it.

Boyko Borisov: I hate such comparisons “fig leaves”, somehow, we are always going into a field, which is not interesting to me. That's how sole authority works, we suppressed our ego, which Mr. Petkov obviously can't, or more precisely, Lena Borislavova can't. Because, yesterday she texted: "We will break the assembly" etc. I did not assemble and I will not participate in their assemblies.

Host: About the assembly and the floating majorities and how sustainable the current government will be. As they say, it started on the 15th day, what was expected to happen from the first day, maybe, in the National Assembly. How will the two coalitions function in terms of supporting the government?

Maxim: Well, what can I tell you, I thought these people were serious about ruling Bulgaria. However, what is happening - yesterday, today, probably the day before, will surely happen tomorrow, doesn't sound serious to me. How can they communicate through the media? How can they communicate through TV? If the gentlemen, Borisov and Petkov, whom I know personally, would accept one piece of advice – they should have breakfast together. Every day at 8:30 they sit and have breakfast, drink coffee, eat a banichka or a croissant, whichever they prefer. If they are on a diet, they will get a yogurt or something else, but they should talk about what they do during the day, what decisions they make, who is against whom, who is against something, what is the logic and what are the arguments for what they are against. Again, if they're going to rule together, otherwise for us, every other day to listen and watch and judge such shots through the TV cameras, through the media, sounds super unserious to me. Yes, there is no assembly. There is absolutely no assembly, because after all, interest brought them together. The interest to have a government, the interest to pass the budget, the interest to unite against the president and many other interests probably. But then, let them protect their interests. What I saw today - one says one thing, the other says another, seems super unserious to me.

Host: Are the leaders of these political formations so unreasonable that they enter this scenario that we are commenting on now?

Maxim: I'm sure they know what the voters want. Voters want a better life, better incomes, lower prices, no inflation, no new elections, because crazy money will be spent to get the same results again. However, it is likely that the people in charge do not know how to communicate with each other, or do not want to do this. For this you must meet every day, exchange compliments. They might not want to see each other, but Bulgaria wants it. If they put Bulgaria above "We Continue the Change", above "GERB", above "Democratic Bulgaria" and above everything else, please do it.

Host: Let's move on to the next topic, because of course it is related to this one. Is there money to cover flood damage? After the rains and floods came the heat, but the damage from the incoming waters to people's homes and flooded farmland remains. However, the state does not have enough money to cover the damage from the disasters and this was announced to the Members of Parliament by the Minister of Interior, Kalin Stoyanov. Let's see more.

Kalin Stoyanov: Realistically, we cannot cover the damages that are currently being claimed, and what’s left to talk about prevention. There are two decisions that allocated 63 million, which means that we have a balance of 17. We have the assurance of the Minister of Finance, Mr. Assen Vassilev, that with the new budget, possibly when it is adopted after July, another 50 million will be allocated, which means that the sum of 80 becomes a total of 130 million.

Host: Still, it became clear from the minister's words that there will be money to deal with the disasters from this month, because they will be considered as a priority, he added. A budget update is expected so that there is money for the victims.

Maxim: With your permission, I will return to the first topic for just 10 seconds. I am ready to host a work-breakfast, as an independent person, between Boyko Borisov and Kiril Petkov, in which they will discuss - how they will talk to each other directly, and not through the media. I'm starting the second topic. It’s impossible for the country to not have money in case of disasters. This is not possible. There is no such thing probably even in the poorest country in the world, and we are far from it. These are people who are, for one reason or another, insured, uninsured, probably the majority of them - uninsured. Those are people in need, people whose houses, cars, farms, and probably animals have sunk. If necessary, all other spendings will be stopped. This money, no matter how little, every lev is needed. I am ready to participate in a donation campaign in which I’m ready to donate money or to help collect money so that we can support the state. Only we, the people, can't handle it, only the donors. It seems to me that this question should not be asked at all. Minister Vassilev must cover absolutely all the needs that our compatriots have from the disaster. It shouldn’t be possible to not have money for people who are in need. With all due respect to them. If we here, the four of us in the studio, go with shovels to help them, we won't do as much work as we would if we did a charity campaign. If a lot of non-governmental organizations in Bulgaria get involved in it, as well as collecting money from citizens and motivating them, we will help the state to wake up and say: "Okay, we will allocate funds immediately. We're not going to do this, this year or we're not going to do that or we're going to lay off 5,000 clerks or whatever. We will help people in need!”.

Host: Maybe the prices of goods and materials should also be updated, because... you were quoting the amount from Minister Shalapatova from the beginning of the week. 1,500 lv. each, if I'm not mistaken, was the compensation for the affected households, which is nothing in the case of a building sunk in mud.

Maxim: I quote a different thing. I quoted that my good friend, Vanya Shalapatova, had said that they should write applications. Which is absurd. Exactly the opposite. Her people, or people from the municipality, or whoever, should be there for anyone affected. Literally with one, for half a minute look, they should be able to consider what they can do to help them, and how to help them. People in trouble. There is nothing worse in a time of peaece, in 2023, to stand on the podium and say: "There is no money, we are very sorry." How is it possible? You know, these are independent of each other. Part of the same problem, same case study. On the one hand – yes, there should be prevention. Money must be invested. You must educate people, convince them that they should get insurance and everything else. On the other hand, we have people suffering today. Today, at this hour. We must help them now. Imagine your house or apartment or whatever gets flooded, and someone says, "Apply and we'll see, maybe next month." We need to help these people today and at the same time, in parallel, there should be an early warning too, of course, which is elementary in this era of communications and digital technologies.

Host: You are watching “Cross point”. The third topic of the show – Bulgaria and Romania will enter Schengen in two stages, writes the publication "Euractiv Bulgaria". However, the publication refers to sources from political circles in Brussels, the Bulgarian parliament and the Bulgarian government. First, control over the airports was expected to fall in October, and full membership, with the abolition of land border control, was supposed to become a fact from January 1 next year. On "Nova News" TV this morning, the correspondent of "Nova TV" in Brussels, Antoaneta Nikolova, and the correspondent of club "Z" in the Belgian capital, Momchil Indjov, commented on the topic.

Antoineta Nikolova: What is known so far and what the sources based on the draft of this document by colleagues from "Euractiv" are, is that the Netherlands will not object to this mechanism being dropped. Let me remind you that for the Netherlands, one of the conditions, apart from the main condition – fight against corruption and convincing results, was to possibly have another report based on which to draw conclusions. So, this report may pave the way, but there is no such estimate for October at the moment.

Momchil Indjov: The important thing is that there is a regular government. This is undeniable. Regular, not official. That is, a full-fledged government that can make decisions. It is also important that this government is pro-Western and pro-European, that is also extremely important. At least twice a week, at least for me personally, I come across information about bus races with migrants, which is particularly alarming, and this says precisely that these people are not just entering. It says there are people from the upper floors helping them in. I have no other explanation.

Maxim: First, this is not a random post, of course. Because someone from the European Parliament had called, or they had coffee with my good friend Georgi Gotev, who works at “Euractiv”, and thus decided to feel the soil. What do European officials tell us? They tell us: "You will enter the Schengen agreement, don't worry." and I find that the most logical thing "But you have to tighten up because you already have deadlines. You have until October; you have until January 1st. Please be so good, you have a government, be so good until October to tighten your borders, not to have these trucks with migrants, to have a serious transit regime, to have surveillance at the borders, so that they cannot trespass…”. It's not just a question of migrants, it's a question of all this control, which is a part of the change of the whole judicial system. That is, we have deadlines, and if we do not meet them, and I am sure that we will meet them, unless the people in power quarrel, we enter Schengen, and it is something like 2 and 2, which equals 4. It will happen, this much is clear. Because I proposed this breakfast between the two party leaders, Petkov and Borisov, I think they have 3 topics they should discuss, at least until the end of this year. First topic – the most important one, the introduction of the euro. Because that’s the biggest question, not entering the Schengen agreement. The second topic is Schengen, of course. And the third topic - controlling inflation. A simple job. They have three topics, let them have breakfast and discuss them. I guarantee that we will enter Schengen, it should have happened a long time ago, maybe 2 or 3 years ago. I can't answer for Romania, but since we’ve started together, we entered the European Union together, we are moving together with Romania. Some say: "They are much ahead.", others say: "No, they are not ahead." I personally think that they have achieved gigantic successes in the last 5 years, but nonetheless, I am sure we will enter Schengen. Now we must make every possible effort, and trouble will not do us any good here. We will need a very strong, strict financial policy, a nice governor of the national bank, who will certainly have the drive and the motivation to do everything possible for Bulgaria to adopt the euro, so that we can truly become part of Europe. Otherwise, Schengen, we’ll save ourselves the wait at the Greek border, 30% of Bulgarians will be very happy - they will drink beer, champagne, eat octopus. But the most important thing in the end is to be part of the European currency, so that we can really feel European in the business.

Host: You need a bigger place, Mr. Behar, because there are several leaders in the coalition, they are not just Mr. Borisov and Mr. Petkov.

Maxim: If they get along together, I think, it’ll be easier with the others.

Host: We’re all out of time, we’ll continue tomorrow.

You can watch the whole interview here.