Bulgaria close to electing pro-European government
Bulgaria is set to end the two-and-a-half-year-long political crisis, as negotiations between GERB and the coalition “We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria” (PP-DB) could result in forming a government which will be voted on by parliament next week.
Talks between GERB and PP-DB continued all day on Thursday. This is expected to be the first government with a rotational change of prime ministers in the history of Bulgarian politics.
The planned political horizon of the government is 18 months. During the first nine months, the prime minister will be the representative of “We Continue the Change” Professor Nikolay Denkov, who has been in four governments as minister of education. Former EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, a GERB representative, will be prime minister after Denkov.
“He should finish the negotiation process soon. We have made progress today. Have a little more patience, we are making progress,” Denkov said after the meeting with GERB on Thursday.
According to unofficial information, Gabriel will first be deputy prime minister, then prime minister, while also holding the position of foreign affairs minister.
The highest-ranking party figure in the cabinet will be the co-chairman of “We Continue the Change” Asen Vasilev, who will be finance minister. The defence minister is expected to be Todor Tagarev, who has a very clear pro-Western profile and is one of the biggest supporters of sending military aid to Ukraine. Julian Popov also enters the government as the environment minister, who has experience as a caretaker minister in the same position.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
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