Local government

Emil Kabaivanov, Mayor of the Bulgarian town of Karlovo, has been indicted with charges of willful neglect of a project to renovate and upgrade his town's sewage system using funding from the EU.

Kabaivanov has been released on bail.

Turkey still has no government. No government is bad for Turkey. Turks feel the impact of no government more directly than Belgians and Danes. After all, no government means no decisions in Turkey.

Turkey?s top judicial body has given the green light to prosecute dozens of prosecutors on charges of delivering thousands of irregular decisions for wiretapping people, including high profile persons.

Reporter Canan Co?kun faces 23 years in prison for coverage of a story about top judicial officials allegedly buying discounted residences from a public real estate company.

Co?kun, who works for daily Cumhuriyet, will appear in court on Nov. 12 facing 23 years and four months in prison on charges of "insulting public officials over their duties."

Bulgaria's Regional Development Ministry has granted 39 municipalities a total of BGN 1.4 B under operational program Regions in Growth 2014-2020.

During an official ceremony on Monday, local authorities were authorized to select and evaluate the projects to be financed under the program.

The service in office of the entire Municipal Council in Pavel Banya has been terminated. The decision was made by the local electoral commission on Friday, as reported by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).

Municipal MPs will be gathering today at around 2 pm to hold an extraordinary meeting.

Local authorities insisted on Friday that they would not give in to the Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis?s demands for municipalities and regional authorities to transfer their cash reserves to the Bank of Greece, where they could be used for short-term borrowing by the government.

Nebojsa Stefanovic says sincerely hoped that new evidence and serious work by the police and prosecutor would help find those responsible in the Bytyqi case.

The interior minister told a press conference that he could not give details that might jeopardize the investigation, but stressed that earlier investigations had been flawed.

Several prosecutors associations in Serbia asked the Constitutional Court on June 3 to review the rulebook on the election of new prosecutors.

They voice concerns that the future elections leave room for abuses and could postpone the opening of chapters 23 and 24, the key chapters in the membership negotiations with the EU.

By Prokopis Hatzinikolaou

The Finance Ministry is promising a reduction on the Single Property Tax (ENFIA) by 30 percent by cutting the property rates used for tax purposes, known as ?objective values.?