Chalga In, Chalga Out, and the Willful Blindness of (EU) Bureaucracy

Payner Media, the Bulgarian chalga music factory, has given up a project awarded BGN 3197324 in EU funds and BGN 287735 in national co-financing.

The company explains that it will still buy studio equipment without wasting time on EU procedures.

Thank you Payner, for putting an end to this disgrace!

After the awarding of the grant, two groups formed in Bulgaria – one of fervent opponents to the step and one of "anything goes" people who insisted that it was just business.

I cannot figure out how Bulgarian intellectuals manage to keep a poker face saying that chalga goes, while racking their brains about how to prevent their children from contracting the chalga mentality.

I do not wish to pay for (EU) institutions which refuse to make evaluative judgments, fearing discrimination accusations, staying deliberately blind to the substance of the issue they have been asked to decide, obeying the letter of the law, principles gone to the dogs.

Chalga is trash, although it is certainly difficult to convey the trashiness in its entirety to foreign audiences.

If (EU) institutions are unwilling to do the job, automata may be better at warding off thrash and will certainly be cheaper to maintain.