News archive of July 2014

Bulgaria's MPs were fined BGN 663 441 for non-attendance, shows an analysis of the BGNES wire service, based on official information for June 2013 – June 2014. 

Of those 630 000 were for absence from sessions of Parliament and the remainder – for absence from committee meetings. 

Council: Cut pensions and salaries by 15%

BELGRADE -- Serbia must cut pensions and public sector salaries by 15 percent during the budget review, "as these measures are key to a successful fiscal consolidation."

This is what the Fiscal Council - an independent state organ that reports to the Serbian parliament - announced on Thursday.

Explosions range out near the crash site of downed flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine on July 31 as international investigators arrived for the first time in nearly a week after Kiev announced a surprise one-day halt to its offensive against rebels.

Deputy Health Minister and National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK) Chairman Boyko Penkov announced funding in the sector could only provide salaries until December.

The minister in resignation said Thursday that the fund would not be able to make any payments from December 1 unless healthcare expenditures in the national budget are updated.

The jihadist Islamic State has imposed a strict dress code for women in eastern Syria, forbidding them from showing any part of their bodies, a monitoring group said on July 31.

"Women... are completely forbidden from showing their eyes," said the statement, which the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was distributed in IS-controlled areas of Deir Ezzor province in the east.

By Costas Iordanidis

High summer temperatures appear to have messed with the reflexes of officials at the top echelons of Greece’s power-sharing administration. A sense of anxiety has gripped the political system and it feels as if the country is in pre-election mode. Optimistic projections are made one day, only to be refuted on the next.

After years of financial troubles, the city of Athens is finally buzzing with tourists. Despite some encouraging figures however, the Greek capital has not quite managed to become a destination in itself, in the style of many of its European peers.

Three large European stock exchanges showed interest in the privatization of the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE), said former Vice PM Daniela Bobeva on Wednesday.

She did not say which were the candidates for the stock exchange.

Kosovo’s outgoing deputy prime minister Edita Tahiri said on Thursday that the petition will be filed to the UN in September, with the aim of finally establishing the facts about rapes by Serbian fighters during the 1998-99 war.

BELGRADE - If salaries and pensions are not cut by 15 percent, the Serbian government will be forced to increase the value added tax by two percent, which is necessary to reduce the budget deficit, President of the Fiscal Council (FC) Pavle Petrovic said Thursday.