An interdepartamental group has proposed to drop 36 state-owned enterprises from the no-privatisation list and to add a further 7. At the moment, the list of enterprises with no privatisation option consists of 130 companies owned by the various ministries. The proposal will have to be approved by the government and then put to a vote in parliament. The Privatisation Agency will determine the format and terms for the denationalisation of the earmarked corporations. According to information obtained by Dnevnik, the no-privatisation ban will be lifted from 8 companies controlled by the finance ministry, 5 run by the farming ministry, 2 run by the economy ministry, 11 run by the culture ministry, 8 run by the regional development ministry and one run by the youth and sports ministry. The finance ministry experts that sat on the interdepartamental group have proposed to delist all enterprises controlled by the ministry. These include the duty-free zones in Burgas, Vidin, Ruse, Plovdiv, Svilengrad and Varna, IT company Information Services and the Bank Consolidation Company. The only two enterprises on the list owned by the youth and sports ministry are Olimpica and the National Sports Base which includes a dozen attractive sports venues like national stadium Vasil Levski, the Yunak stadium, the Belmeken high-altitude training base and the Han Asparuh equestrian base. The regional development ministry is keen to dump all of its construction companies, including Technoexportstroy, Avtomagistrali, Metalni Konstrukcii Holding, Promishleno Stroitelstvo Holding and Montazhi. Technoexportstroy and Avtomagistrali are part of the Bulgarian-Portuguese consortium that has been awarded a no-bid concession contract to finish the construction and operate the Trakia motorway. Almost total secrecy shrouds that names of the 7 companies proposed to be included in the no-privatisation list. One of the certain additions is ADIS, the real estate company that manages properties leased to the diplomatic corps.
Source: Dnevnik (30.05.2007)

Kamchiyski Pyasatsi is the territory with the longest beach in Bulgaria, which in April 2024, however, the area was finally declared part of the European ecological network "Natura 2000", which means that construction is prohibited there, with the exception of major repairs and reconstruction of existing infrastructure. Kamchiyski Pyasatsi is again the subject of a dispute in court. At the end of 2024, the companies "Met Real Estate", "Rees International", "Beta Forest" and "Mirta Engineering" appealed the decision of the Minister of Environment to declare the protected area. The next hearing in the case has been announced for October 9. The same four companies have been at the heart of the construction appetites in Kamchiyski Pyasatsi for many years now. In 2006, the old order for the designation of the Kamchiyski Pyasatsi protected area (from 1980) was declared null and void by a decision of the Supreme Administrative Court. Through the notorious substitutions, a large part of the beach unconstitutionally passed into private hands. The four companies appealing the order are related to each other, the main one being "Met Real Estate" EAD. It owns "Beta Forest" EOOD, "Mirta Engineering" EOOD, "Rees International" EAD and "International Sport Company" EOOD. The sole owner of the capital of "Met Real Estate" EAD is the Austrian "Met Betailungsferwaltung" GmbH. As of 2010, the latter was owned by Raiffeisen Bank, but later became the property of the English company Reece Enterprises Limited, owned by 87-year-old Mike Rees. In fact, representatives of "Met Real Estate" are Borislav Lyubenov Gunov, Shinka Petkova Goigadzhieva and Atanaska Marinova Dimitrova. Shinka Goigadzhieva is the sister of the well-known construction magnate Blagoy Pishinov, who in recent months came into public attention due to plans for a large housing project in the capital's "Motopista" district. Over the years, the company's lawyer has been Todor Batkov. It is no coincidence that ecologist and former deputy minister of the environment Toma Belev publicly points out the connection between Pishinov and Batkov with the four companies. Shinka Petkova Goigadzhieva is involved in "Met Real Estate". In 2005, she became known for the scandalous exchange of thousands of acres of forests near Svoge for dunes in the picturesque Kamchiyski Pyasatsi. The forest in the Kamchiyski Pyasatsi area was valued at 9 leva/sq m, with an average market price of neighboring properties of at least 90 leva per square meter. After an investigation by the EC in 2019, the state admitted that 103 forest swaps were unequal, i.e. private companies gave their cheaper forests and took more expensive state-owned land in attractive areas. Thus, the budget was seriously damaged. However, all 103 swaps were then valued at 80 million leva. The Ministry of Agriculture promised to make a subsequent assessment. Such an assessment has not been presented publicly so far. The legal proceedings between the EC and Bulgaria regarding the implementation of the decision to recover unlawfully granted state aid, through the transactions for the exchange of state-owned forest land for private-owned forest land in the period January 1, 2007 - January 27, 2009, have not been concluded. One of the controversial issues is precisely with regard to the assessment of the properties, which the state had commissioned and carried out by "Agrolesproekt" EOOD. However, among all the cases of unequal substitutions, only 10 companies returned the money. A total of 69 have appealed in court and 51 cases have already been lost by the state. Among them is the case of the substitution of the forest in Kamchiyski Pyasatsi by "Beta Forest", associated with "Met Real Estate". According to the court, the companies that bought the land do not have to return money to the state. decision of the Council of Ministers converted land from the beach strip from exclusive state to private state property. Thus, the regional governor of Varna at the time - Petar Kandilarov, announced the conversion of over 1500 decares into agricultural land, pasture 10th category. The same year, the regional governor changed the purpose of parts of the former campsites "Izgrev" and "Horizont" and removed them from the State Forest Fund, declaring them state-private property. These plots are on the very border of the protected area "Kamchiyski Pyasatsi". A year later, a three-member panel of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) abolished the protected status of the area based on formal arguments - because in 1980 the order was signed by the chairman of the then Committee for the Protection of the Natural Environment, and not by the Minister of Forests and Forest Resources, and according to the court, only the latter had the right to declare new protected areas. The decision was appealed by the Ministry of Environment before a five-member panel of the Supreme Administrative Court, which, however, chaired by Konstantin Penchev, finally deleted the protected area on November 2, 2006. This made it possible in early 2007, with a real estate exchange contract between the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry (then Nihat Kabil) and "Met Real Estate", for over 1015 decares of dunes to become private property. For the purposes of the exchange, they were valued at 186,809 leva, or 18 cents/sq m. By order of Kabil, almost 9209 decares of forests owned by "Beta Forest" in Troyan region were replaced with 1364 decares of dunes of the state forest fund, as well as the replacement of 9358 decares of forests owned by "Mirta Engineering"
Source: Capital (23.09.2025)