Bulgaria

DIMITROVGRAD - In a joint operation by police forces from seven regional countries, named "Nisava 2014", a large amount of foreign currency was seized as well as a so-called ATM skimmer - a fraud device used for stealing customer bank card data, chief of Serbia's border police Nenad Banovic said on Monday in Dimitrovgrad.

A total of 37 Bulgarian companies will present their products at the world's leading industrial fair, Hannover Messe, in the period April 7 – 11, 2014.

Bulgaria's participation is organized by the Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion Agency under a project financed under the European Regional Development Fund via Operational Program Competitiveness 2007-2013.

Bulgarian Investment Planning Minister Ivan Danov rejected accusations of lack of transparency, stressing that the ministry was created only recently.

Municipalities in Bulgaria will be granted additional BGN 100M in 2015, Minister of Finance Petar Chobanov announced, Monday.

Minister Chobanov and Bulgarian Development Bank CEO Dimo Spasov have met with representatives of the business and have introduced credit opportunities for the SMEs in the city of Veliko Tarnovo, Standart news reports.

Nikolay Barekov, a former journalist and TV host, announced he would lead the EU Elections list of a coalition forged by his Bulgaria without Censorship (BWC) party.

The leaders of nationalist VMRO-BND, Agrarian People's Union and Gergiovden Movement, the other three parties within the coalition, will rank immediately after him in the list, Dnevnik.bg has reported.

Power distributor CEZ has proposed a settlement to the Bulgarian National Electricity Company (NEK), officials from the state-owned utility announced Monday. On Tuesday CEZ sent a letter to NEK saying it was ready to engage in a dialogue over its debts to NEK.

Bulgaria's Burgas and Turkey's Kırklareli (Lozengrad) are to sign an agreement on conducting feasibility studies for a railway line connecting the two municipalities.

Bulgaria is hoping to host a tournament of the Association of Professional Tennis Players (ATP), according to Stefan Tsvetkov, President of the Bulgarian Tennis Federation.

The productivity in certain sectors increases but this does not affect wages, the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria president Plamen Dimitrov claimed.

EC President Jose Barroso has told Tsvetan Tsvetanov, Deputy Chair of Bulgarian party GERB, that the South Stream gas pipeline has not been given priority treatment in Europe.