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No single topic dominates the front page of Friday's print dailies. Following is an overview of their front-page stories.

Trud: Bosses and owners of companies will pay a smaller tax when using company cars and flats for personal uses: the tax will be reduced to 3 per cent from 10 per cent, decided the parliamentary Budget and Finance Committee by adopting second-reading revisions to tax laws. The tax on interest rates on citizens' deposits will be lifted. The maximum insurance income is increased to 3,400 leva from 3,000 leva and will be increased annually under a new formula.

Duma: The Agriculture, Food and Forestry Ministry is almost done with the Strategic Plan for Agriculture, under which Bulgaria could absorb 7.5 billion euro in the 2023-2027 programming period. The draft was presented on Thursday before the parliamentary Agriculture, Food and Forestry Committee. Minister Ivan Ivanov thus kept his promise to have the Strategic Plan presented in February. Once adopted, the document will be tabled at the European Commission. The work on the Strategic Plan began back in 2020 but a delay resulted in failure to table it in Brussels on time. In the words of Deputy Agriculture Minister Ivan Hristanov, the team worked non-stop in the course of 14 weeks to prepare the draft, which returns the focus to Bulgaria's agriculture.

Capital Weekly: The issue is entitled "The Year of the Big Appreciation", with 10 pages of articles dedicated to the rising inflation in Bulgaria. The articles look into the reasons for this inflation and how it will develop in 2022, as well as at how the rising inflation will affect the energy sector, transport and logistics, and industry.

Sega: The front page is a cartoon depicting Finance Minister Assen Vassilev dressed like a waiter and carrying a round purple tray. Reaching for the many slices on the tray are many more hands, the sleeves indicating their owners are dressed in suits. The cartoon possibly refers to the draft national budget, with politicians all wanting a piece of the pie.

Monitor: Debt collectors should collect debts only after the firmly stated agreement of the debtors, proposes National Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva in a position sent to Economy Minister Korneliya Ninova in relation to Ninova's bill on debt collection under consumer contracts that is currently undergoing public discussion. Kovacheva insists that the debtor's agreement be included as a separate clause in or an annex to the contract, and not as part of the general conditions of the contract that most citizens do not read before signing. 

Telegraf: Car importers say the delivery of a newly-made car to Bulgaria can take up to 9 months. Boyan Stoynev, marketing director of a car dealership company, commented for the daily that the delivery period depends on the car model. The main reason for the slow delivery of new vehicles is the deficit in chips, which are used in all electronic systems in new models. Despite this, importers report an increase by 18 per cent in the sales of new cars to private clients.

24 Chasa: The risks for one's heart remain high at least a year after having had COVID-19, shows one of the biggest analyses to date of the consequences of the coronavirus.  The risks are not limited to people in bad health, those with concomitant diseases, severe COVID-19 recoveries, the elderly and obese. Complications are observed in everyone, including young and healthy individuals. The study was conducted by a team at Washington University in St. Louis among 153,760 people who had had COVID-19 up to twelve months prior; the control groups were two: 5.6 million people without COVID and another 5.9 million with cardiovascular problems registered before the pandemic.

POLITICS

Sega reports that the spokesperson of the last two caretaker governments of President Rumen Radev, Anton Koutev, is leaving the leadership of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP). He remains its member, it transpires from a Facebook post of his where he also published his statement to the BSP National Council. He wrote that he is leaving the BSP National Council after two decades of being elected to it, due to "the deepening political differences in the party's narrow political leadership" and his unwillingness to participate "neither in the personal 'purges' in the party nor in the profanization of the Left ideology we have been witnessing in the last years". He explained that he remains BSP member with the "naive hope that pushing off the bottom is possible" despite being convinced that such a thing could not happen under the party's current leadership. Sega recalls that last month another Socialist, former BSP leader Mihail Mikov, left the party with the explanation that his ideas no longer coincided with those of the current leadership. Recent dramas were also observed in BSP-Sofia, the daily writes.

A story in 24 Chasa reads that a hand gesture of Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki (European Conservatives and Reformists Group/VMRO) in the plenary chamber of the European Parliament (EP) was described by EP President Roberta Mezzola as an insult to her and everyone in Europe, as the gesture resembled a Nazi salute. In an email to his colleagues Dzhambazki denied having made a Nazi salute and called the incident "a small misunderstanding". The scene took place after his speech in the plenary chamber on Wednesday during the debate on the Court of Justice of the European Union's decision allowing Brussels to stop the EU funds for countries with rule-of-law problems. "We will never allow you to tell us what we should say and what we should do. Viva Orban and Fidesz, viva Kaczynski and the Law and Justice party, viva Bulgaria and our national country. Viva Europe of nations," the Bulgarian MEP said in his speech, as quoted by 24 Chasa.

Trud reports that on February 23 the opposition Vazrazhdane party organizes a national protest mottoed "We Want a Normal Life". It has been provoked by the Green Certificate required for entry in certain public places, similarly to the previous protest on January 12, but now there is also discontent with the incumbents' overall policy. The protest will be staged in front of the Council of Ministers' building in Sofia at the time of the Cabinet's regular meeting. Vazrazhdane called on citizens to join the protest in motorcycles, cars, trucks, and agricultural machinery. Approached by Trud, Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov denied their protest being the Bulgarian version of the Canadian riot against compulsory vaccination. If on February 23 there are provocations, these will originate from the Government, he told the daily.

24 Chasa has an interview with Kancho Stoychev, President of the Gallup International polling association. He comments on the ruling coalition's  first moves, including the 2022 state budget and the differing opinions within the coalition partners on the Belene N-plant project. He also comments on the recent talks about a new Left formation. According to Stoychev, there is a low chance of new early general elections before the 2023 local elections.

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Trud quotes the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) as saying on Thursday that four persons were detained in Bulgaria's south-central city of Plovdiv on February 15 as part of an EPPO investigation into EU funds fraud. Some 11,000 euro in cash were seized. The four are suspected of providing false information to obtain money from the European Social Fund as well as under the measure in support of micro and small enterprises for overcoming the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Charges have not been brought against them yet. The EPPO said the case was referred to it by Bulgaria's specialized prosecution service in December 2021.

In an interview for Trud, former caretaker defence minister (March-May 2013) Prof. Todor Tagarev comments on the incumbents' policy on NATO and the tension over Ukraine. He argues that in the last days the Bulgarian defence policy has been undergoing a rapid change without a serious discussion, this policy's direction being shifted away from NATO on the fly. "There are forces in Bulgaria acting in Kremlin's interest who are actually taking us out of NATO," he argues.