Sofia - Bulgaria will hold parliamentary elections on July 5, President Georgi Parvanov's cabinet said Tuesday. The poll would be the first since Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007. The new centre-right GERB party, headed by former top policeman and now Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov leads popularity surveys with 30 per cent. GERB was however still not tested in elections.

Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's Socialist Party, which leads the ruling coalition, is ranked in second in surveys with a 20-per cent support.

Sofia - Natural gas importing countries in Europe, meeting on Friday in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, called for greater energy "security" in reaction to the Russian gas crisis four months ago.

Energy security does not stop at national borders, nor does it stopat the European Union border, said EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the start of the two-day summit.

Sofia - Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov Wednesday vetoed the new election law, criticized by the opposition as undemocratic because it favours large parties.

With the limited authority as head of state, Parvanov has the right to veto a parliament act. Legislators, however, may return it to him unchanged and force him to enact it.

The new law, pushed through Monday by the ruling Socialist Party (BSP) and its allies, raised the number of votes a party must win in elections to qualify for parliament from 4 to 8 per cent.

Sofia - Bulgarian retail prices went u

Sofia - Traffic in Sofia plunged into chaos Tuesday as a garbage-removal company, in a dispute with city authorities, ordered its workers not to clean piles of garbage or clear fresh snow.

Sofia authorities on Monday decided to sever its contract with the private company Novera to remove garbage. While the deal was set to expire on April 1, Novera had already stopped working last Saturday, saying it was not being paid.

Sofia  - Discovered under centuries-old layers of dirt in 1948, then submerged under 20 metres of water, the ancient city of Seuthopolis is to emerge once again in a bold rescue project.

The magnificently preserved city, founded by the Thracian king Seuthes III in 323 BC, was discovered in central Bulgaria during the construction of a dam on the Tundzha river.