On December 2 Bulgaria’s printed media accentuates on the 2017 state budget, which was adopted at second reading at the National Assembly. Next year, the political parties will receive big subsidies again, despite the results of the national referendum held in November, Sega daily informs. The parties will receive 11 Leva (EUR 5.5) per each valid vote, whereas at the recent referendum the Bulgarian citizens supported the idea about the reduction of that subsidy to 1 lev (50 Eurocents) per valid vote. “The Bulgarian MPs neglected the voice of the Bulgarian citizens”, Trud daily writes on that occasion. Duma daily points out that the MPs from GERB used “dirty tricks and falsifications” to ruin the proposal, which envisaged that in 2017 state budget an extra EUR 5 million had to be given to the budget of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and that the Sofia University Saint Kliment Ohridski had to receive an extra EUR 250,000.

24 Chassa claims on its first pages that the early Parliamentary elections next spring will not be held under the majoritarian voting system. In an interview for that newspaper the National Assembly Legal Affairs Committee Chairman Danail Kirilov said that the amendments to the voting system related to the introduction of majoritarian elections in two rounds will not be adopted until the upcoming early elections. According to the Venice Commission’s requirement, no substantial changes to electoral rules should be made in the year of elections. Secondly, no political party has submitted to the National Assembly a draft bill on amendments to the voting system yet, Danail Kirilov points out.

Sega daily informs on its first pages that there no video surveillance has been installed along a 200 kilometer section of the Bulgaria-Turkey border. The newspaper quotes an announcement of Bulgaria’s Deputy Minister of Interior Philip Gounev who said that the Ministry of Interior found out that many migrants accommodated themselves at the Harmanli reception center without asking permission from the Bulgarian authorities. Besides, migrant smugglers often attempted to enter the migrant camp, too.

Capital daily informs on Friday that the political parties are storing cheap, yet dangerous dividends from the migrant crisis issue. The main political forces unite under a common stand that the migrant crisis is Bulgaria’s biggest threat and store short-term dividends ahead of the early Parliamentary elections. However, the detrimental effect has already become evident and each decision aimed at alleviating the problems of the authorities and the citizens living nearby the migrant centers, turned unacceptable before it was even adopted, the newspaper claims. The policy to frighten people with the migrant crisis favors everyone-the opposition has a reason to attack the ruling parties about their migrant policy. On the other hand, the ruling parties have the opportunity to say proudly that they are attracting millions of Euros from the EU to finance urgently measures related to border control. However, the creation of a public enemy in favor of all political parties reduces significantly Bulgaria’s chances to follow an adequate policy line, Capital further writes.