site.btaUPDATED PM Continues Meetings with EU Commissioner Nominees

Caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev Thursday met with four EU Commissioner nominees on Thursday, his press office said. He talked to Julian Popov, who was nominated by Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria, Victor Papazov of Vazrazhdane, Dragomir Stoynev and Tsvetelina Penkova of BSP for Bulgaria. No further details of the meetings are provided.

On Wednesday, Glavchev met with Ekaterina Zaharieva, who was nominated by GERB-UDF, as well as with Iskra Mihaylova, nominated by Delyan Peevski of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. He conferred with Velislava Petrova, nominated by There Is Such a People, via videoconference. 

On Tuesday, the caretaker Prime Ministerv sent a letter to all parliamentary groups in the 50th National Assembly urging them to put forward nominations for a Bulgarian EU Commissioner. He said he expected the nominations by 29 August. 

The Council of Ministers will consider the nominations at its weekly meeting on Friday and pick the nominees it will propose to the European Commission, said the Government Information Service.

In a related development, President Rumen Radev called on the Council of Ministers to propose two female nominations for EU commissioner.

"In her letter to the Bulgarian Prime Minister, [European Commission] President Ursula von der Leyen asked for two nominees of whom one must be a woman but, in this situation, trust me, if we send a man and women, this implies that there will be absolutely no competition because the woman will be chosen right away," Radev reasoned, talking to journalists in Sozopol Thursday evening. 

"That is why I call on the Prime Minister and on the Council of Ministers to send two women, so that Mrs Von der Leyen can have some choice," the head of State added. In his opinion, a male candidate stands no chance at all and Bulgaria is late with such nomination.