site.btaPresident to Caretaker Government: You Have Stopped the Free-fall of the State

A meeting has started at the President's Office Friday where President Rumen Radev will present the priorities of the re-appointed caretaker government. Attending are Prime Minister Galab Donev and all ministers. "You have managed to stop the free-fall of the State," Radev told the ministers as they begin their second tenure.

The President also said that the forecasts had been for very negative scenarios for the economy, state institutions coming to a standstill, record-high fuel prices, galloping inflation. He went on to catalogue a shortage of gas, contracts, tenders, unfinished gas interconnector with Greece and wildly inflated prices, frozen infrastructure projects, lack of laws called for by the Recovery and Resilience  Plan, lack of progress in further European integration and a standstill in the modernization of the Bulgarian army. To these things he added record migration pressure, a war nextdoor. 

"The priorities I set for you were aimed at that," the head of State noted as he turned to the government. He recalled that among them are strengthening security and bringing down the price of energy carriers with a focus on the interests of ordinary consumers and the Bulgarian economy, strengthening European integration and increasing the purchasing power of citizens. 

"Despite the limited instruments of an executive without parliamentary support, you managed to stop the free fall of the state, to hold fair elections and to open up new opportunities for the upward development of the country," the President said.

Things came to a second tenure of the Galab Donev caretaker government after none of three exploratory mandated for the formation of a Cabinet within this Parliament succeeded, and the President announced that he was going to disband Parliament from February 2, appoint a new caretaker government and schedule early elections for April 2.

Here is the full government, with only one new name in it - of Culture Minister Nayden Todorov: 

Deputy Prime Minister for Social Policies and Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Lazar Lazarov

Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Policies and Minister of Transport, Hristo Aleksiev

Deputy Prime Minister for Public Order and Security and Minister of Interior, Ivan Demerdzhiev

Deputy Prime Minister for European Funds, Atanas Pekanov

Minister of Finance, Rositza Velkova-Zheleva

Minister of Defence, Dimitar Stoyanov

Minister of Health, Assen Medjidiev

Minister of Regional Development and Public Works, Ivan Shishkov

Minister of Education and Science, Sasho Penov

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nikolay Milkov

Minister of Justice, Krum Zarkov

Minister of Culture, Nayden Todorov

Minister of Environment and Water, Rositsa Karamfilova-Blagova

Minister of Agriculture, Yavor Gechev

Minister of Economy and Industry, Nikola Stoyanov

Minister of Energy, Rossen Hristov

Minister of Innovation and Growth, Alexander Pulev

Minister of Tourism, Ilin Dimitrov

Minister of Youth and Sports, Vesela Lecheva

Minister of e-Government, Georgi Todorov