Q: Mr. Sofianski, when I read your CV, I saw that it was quite extensive - Deputy Chairman of the budget commission, member of the Bulgarian Parliament delegation for the relations with the European Parliament, appointed a temporary prime minister in
1997. Could you tell us a little bit more of your professional background?
A: The thing is that we have to talk about my background before - you do not know what would have happened if the changes had not begun. We were not allowed to travel abroad during the communist period. When my mother received her first permission, it was in the late 80's, to go and see her brother, who is in Switzerland, she told me that she wanted to thank to God and to light a candle, but also that she was not sure to whom - Mr.Reagan or Mr.Gorbachov. It was only ten years ago. Now, when things have changed, I can talk about my background - I was educated as an economist. Later on I specialised operational research. I used to work in an economic institute, I was dealing with information systems, quantity estimating systems. Bulgaria used to produce computers and we tried to work with them when they worked. We also had the chance to work with some good systems like IBM and later on we developed the systems on PC. That was till the 90's when the changes started. I told myself that I have to give my contribution and efforts to the changes in Bulgaria. So I started as an economic director in our newspaper "Democratsia"; it was the first "free" newspaper after the changes. Later on I was in charge of Post and Telecommunication in Bulgaria in the first democratic government in 1992. Then I was Deputy chairman of our political force - the UDF. During this period I was also member of the Board of Directors of Post Bank. Later on, I was also elected as Member of Parliament. You know the rest.
Q: As a mayor of Sofia, how do you thing - what kind of foreign investors would be interested to come and invest here in your capital?
A: Normally there is some interest in the infrastructures. We had three big companies, which are 100% municipality-owned; and there are some others. There is the city transport, which nobody wants to privatise. There is a slight interest because we succeeded to launch our subway, which is the 107th in world. So this year Sofia already has its own subway - the first 5 stations; and we need another 100 million $ to make the subway more effective. We have started with the construction but there is a lack of financing. There is a real interest from Spain, from Japan, from Germany. We are negotiating the first investments in the subway. There are long term investments, just we have to find a way to imply it in the field of the city transport. I think that we are rather advanced in the negotiations and I hope that we will go in this projects for another 5-10 years. The second large interest is in the water supply system. We are going to give a concession now; we are working very hard and we have a contract with EBRD . We will open a tender-procedure for giving the concession to companies. I think that we agree on the tender documentation to be ready till the end of this year and we hope that next year we will have another private owner of our company. At the moment, large interest is mentioned from France, Germany and also some American and English companies. There is a second large project that needs an investment of about 100 million $ - also a long-term investment. We have enough water now, which is good. There is no water problem but we need optimising of the structure and modernising the systems. The third field, which is going to become very interesting, is the district heating. We have one of the largest systems of district heating in whole Europe. We have 4 plants producing heat and have over 320 subscribers. The district heating system has very good net work and it is based on gas and fuel also. There is a large field of opportunities for investing in coal generation systems; to use the capacity to produce power and also to optimise the system. Here we are negotiating with some companies including Honeywell from the USA. But still the legislative frame is not favourable enough for those projects. There is a programme in the Parliament for this legislation to be changed.
These are the large projects. We have already some investments. There is a lack of some kind of buildings like business centres, new hotels. We have a project with a French company " Freal ", financed by IFC to the World Bank also, for a new Hilton Hotel. The construction works have already started. We have also investments from « Metro », a German company. We are working very well with them and early next year we will have « Metro » markets in the city. There also other different projects on a smaller scale but in general these are the priorities. We succeeded during this period to establish a bank of our own - The Municipal Bank - two years ago. It is working quite well at the moment and it succeeded to attract some of the other cities. We agreed also with Moskow Bank. They will buy shares from our bank. At the moment we are working also on the city rating of Sofia. It will be ready till the end of October and then we will be more able to apply for some more credit lines. We are working with Paris Bas and Standard Emprouse - rating agencies.
Q: As a mayor of Sofia, what are the main challenges that your city is facing right now?
A: The transition period is everywhere and we have
to find the way to go through it; we have to change
everything. We started in the early 90's with 100%
state-owned property. So there was no practically
private properties except the flats and the cars.
We have to change everything, we have to move in
changing the properties with privatisation process,
restitution and so on. We also have to change the
way of governing of this property. When we have
a state property we have a large administration
supposed to manage it. The Board of Directors is
appointed by the Ministry; they are responsible
to the Ministry. The higher level of state property
needs a lot of administration. So when we transform
the property form of owning we have to transform
the administration also. The administration has
to accept that they are no more owners of the property.
You have to change their function from direct administration
just to regulation and planning as a policy in the
different branches. That is not so easy to be done
because living in a communist country you always
feel that everything is yours, you have to accept
that it does not depend on you, you do not have
to administrate it, you just have to serve it. Changing
the mentality and the way of thinking is the main
problem. It is difficult for the people to accept
that they have duties to the state but not the state
to them. You can never imagine what was it like
during the communist regime and it is not easy to
explain. For example I want to buy a car, 15 years
ago, and I have the money. Then I have to put the
money in a state special account and I can receive
it after 10 years. I will receive the car from the
state. I won't buy it. It was the same with the
flat; the people waited for twenty years and there
was no free market. It is hard to change the mentality
of the people that the state will "give"
them. These are the challenges. |
Q: You were talking about your relations with foreign countries, but what about your relations with the foreign cities now?
A: Yes, we have very good contacts with a lot of cities but I prefer them to be on a concrete basis. I have already been mayor for three years and till now I haven't signed any kind of twinning contracts because we prefer to have good relationship on a project basis. We have very good relations with Berlin in the field of transport and water supply systems, with Vienna in the district heating and water supply systems, with Moskow - we are very good friends with its mayor Luskov and we have very good contacts in the cultural field. At the moment we are developing a plan for some supplies from Sofia to Moskow for concrete products. These are cities that really are our partners. Of course, we have very good contacts with our neighbours - Athens and Skopje. They are not so good with the mayor of Belgrad because the changes there are too much. We are also taking part in some international organisations.
Q: What are you doing to improve the image of your city - Sofia?
A: Working. We have to change the face of the city. This is a problem not only here but in all the cities in the former socialist countries, because of the crisis before and after the changes. There was a lack of investments in our cities because of the bad economical condition of the countries. If you do not maintain something it goes bad very quickly. And then you need more money to invest and renovate it. That is what we are doing. We started with the road network, then comes the public transport. We invest also in the schools.
When I mentioned the projects I missed one very important project for Sofia and the country as a whole - the National Airport. We have to renovate it. We are taking part in it. Last year it was not part of the municipality but the former government took the decision the city also to have part in it. Then I was prime minister. We succeeded to attract 120 million USD for investments (60 million ECU by the European Investment Bank and 40 million ECU by Kuwait Bank). And for me this is one of the most important projects not only for Sofia but also for the country. And I hope that next year the reconstruction will start. There will be a new passenger terminal, new runway, new traffic control tower.
We have to change the face of the city, which is the door of the country - road infrastructure, telecommunications and airport.
Q: Mr.Sofianski, thanks to your popularity, you are considered to be the best tread to Mr.Kostov within the party…
A: I am a mayor of Sofia and I like my city. There was a period when were in crisis and someone had to run the risk to do something. Now I am a mayor and I love my job and we are good friends with Mr.Kostov; we are working together. We used to work together in the first democratic government. He used to be Minister of Finance when I was in charge of Post and Telecommunication. There is no contradiction between us.
Q: But as I was saying, thanks to your popularity you are considered to be a charismatic figure on the Bulgarian political scene and even in the Sofia politics. What is your secret?
A: I can not agree fully with you, but answering the question - I do not have any secrets. Working is the right answer. You have to work. We all started as beginners in the politics in the early 90's. We never imagined that we would have this kind of possibilities to change something. Sometimes it so happens that we make mistakes but when you do that you have to be transparent. That is very important together with involving the people in the process, which you are doing. We all have to change. It won't happen if only
5-10 people know what has to be done. When more people know what has to be done it is better.
Q: You are a very confident person. How confident are you for the future of your country and Sofia?
A: I am an optimist. I thing we succeeded in achieving the first very important thing - the financial stabilisation. It is very important. We are paying now our debts. We succeeded to reorganise the banking system now. It is working very well now. That is the first very important step.
Now, unfortunately, we are a little bit slow in the structural reform - giving the private property back to its former owners, the privatisation, the change of the property along with the change of the administration.
But I am very optimistic because we have a sound basis now. We are working under a currency board, which is working very well. There is almost no inflation. Last year, February the inflation only for the month was 243%. Now you can see the difference - we have stability. We have to stress a little bit on the structure reform and the privatisation along with the legislation basis. We have to give a good frame of the private sector - not only to privatise but to keep fair rules.
Q: As a final issue, what would be your final message to our readers?
A: Do not hesitate and come to Bulgaria.
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BULGARIA, 
