Stanishev Cabinet to Prepare New Cadre Bank

The European Commission will closely monitor Bulgaria’s next cabinet formation. Especially strictly it will scrutinize the selection of ministers responsible for EU funds management, whose selection will not be carried out without its approval. The EU requests careful “screening” of the cadre bank. This is set as a concrete task with a concrete deadline. The creation of a new cadre bank was the exact requirement to prime-minister Sergey Stanishev, witnesses to the heavy talks between representatives of European Structures and Bulgarian authorities told Bulgaria News.

A signal for the discontent with the performance of Stanishev’s cabinet
was the rejection of President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso to meet Bulgaria’s prime-minister in the days preceding the announcement of the Commission’s latest intermediate report. All the probing on Bulgaria’s side delivered no results. Discontent with both the overall system for EU funds absorbtion and the corruption among oligarchs, white collars, and ministers alike, was outraging our European partners. “We’ll see EU funds on the Greek calends”, a witness of direct talks with Bulgarian ruling circles commented.

 

Money from the EU might be expected in September at the earliest. There is a list of banned oligarchs Europe does not want to work with, the two Gergovs – Georgi and Krassimir, included. Bulgaria’s European partners insist all VAT-millionaires got chased out of the country’s political and public space. Tension grows over persons close to businessman Vassil Bozhkov, who in the last year focused his ambitions on building infrastructure. Pressure is put on the cabinet to see some members departed, namely ministers of finance and of regional development and public works Plame Oresharski and Assen Gagauzov, accordingly. The proposal on Oresharski’s resignation was already voiced by ex-deputy-minister of finance Georgi Kadiev (BSP). Given premier Stanishev’s adamant position on the Oresharski issue, expressed almost immediately after Kadiev’s statement, the EU funds tap will most likely be actually closed until the elections.

Bulgaria will experience
the model of tightening the noose,
which proved working in Portugal after its EU accession, until the government itself cleared out corruption at operating with EU funds. Bulgaria’s businesses large-scale greed foils the country’s chances, insiders think. To them, we must learn the rules in European taxpayer money absorption, starting with co-operation with European companies.

The EC is said to be prone on working with the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and premier Stanishev after the elections as well, provided he passes the test of chasing failed ministers out. An alternative option was seen in the face of Bulgaria’s current Ambassador at the EC Boyko Kotzev. He is supposed of controlling enough authority to defend some of the candidatures for future ministers before Bulgaria’s European partners.

 

Chair of the majority in the European Parliament Wilfred Martens announced, though,
a different version about Bulgaria’s future cabinet.

After arriving in Bulgaria upon the invitation of Boyko Borissov’s Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB), leader of the European People’s Party (EPP) Martens declared he expected Bulgaria to have right rule after the elections and denied all rumors envoys of the EPP were negotiating with PES over a possible government formation between CEDB and BSP after the general election. Yet information emerged about negotiations between emissaries of EPP and BSP, confirmed by BSP’s MEP Kristian Vigenin, and not categorically denied by Boyko Borissov.

 

“I hope to see an extremely strong rightist government in Bulgaria under Mr Borissov”, the chair of EPP said. “EU is extremely strict in combating corruption and we are backing CEDB”, he added, alienating the two notions.

The other Bulgarian EPP member-parties – Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), Democratic Party (DP), and Bulgarian Agrarian People’s Union – Popular Union (BAPU-PU), though the latter fall apart, did not react neither positive, nor negative to Martens’ statements, probably because the reservations between them and CEDB on forming a rightist cabinet after the elections are a fact already. Borissov himself has always declared he would form a government with the other Bulgarian EPP member-parties.