2024-09-11 06:23:33
Ekaterina Zaharieva was “close to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov” and was involved in schemes to sell Bulgarian passports as a minister.
Similar old and false documents were brought out against the Bulgarian, candidate for European Commissioner, by Bulgarian politicians and “journalists” and laundered in publications in Brussels.
The attack peaked on Tuesday,
after Zaharieva became the only Bulgarian nominee for European Commissioner
Initially, the caretaker government nominated the former minister and deputy from GERB and Julian Popov (nominated by PP-DB). On Monday evening, after interviews with the two, the head of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, asked to receive Zaharieva’s official nomination. And this happened early in the morning on Tuesday with a decision of Dimitar Glavchev’s office.
Ekaterina Zaharieva will probably receive the portfolio of crisis management and humanitarian aid, Politico reported a few days ago. However, the publication specifies that this is its well-founded assumption, since Bulgaria is not applying for any of the key positions. This will not be a new department for our country, as Kristalina Georgieva was European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response in the period 2010-2014 during the second term of the Barroso Commission.
Unofficially, however, Zaharieva also applied for regional development or transport. What he will get will be known when von der Leyen officially announces the composition of the commission.
In parallel with the process of nominating a Bulgarian candidate for European Commissioner, the media reheated a scandal that raged around the so-called golden passports when Zaharieva was Minister of Foreign Affairs.
On Tuesday morning, the Bulgarian National Radio published a material by its correspondent in Brussels, entitled “Politico: Scandal from 2018 casts a shadow over the Bulgarian nomination for the EC”. However, this statement is not from the Brussels edition, which belongs to the “Axel Springer” concern. It belongs to the Bulgarian MEP Nikola Minchev from PP-DB.
The publication of “Politico” actually deals with the “excessive” desire of the president of the European Commission to have more women in her and examines all the candidates with a chance to end up in the new EC, pointing out their bad sides. It is written about Zaharieva that the knives have been drawn against her and her opponents are eager to remind everyone how her name was involved in the scandal of 2018 for the sale of Bulgarian passports. All this is not in the text of the BNR correspondent, but in the title words of Nikola Minchev are taken out and attributed to the publication.
BNR later corrected itself and changed the title of its text to “Nikola Minchev to Politico: Scandal from 2018 casts a shadow over the Bulgarian EC nomination”.
“24 Chasa”, faithful to its position to present the facts correctly, accurately translated “Politico” about Zaharieva one to one with a headline from their text: “Politico: They pulled out the knives for Ekaterina Zaharieva”.
In fact, the attack on the deputy from GERB
started on August 30 on the Euractiv.com Brussels site and continued on the Bulgarian site
euractiv.bg.
In the first, the deputy editor-in-chief is the journalist Georgi Gotev, and in the second, he is its publisher.
The Bulgarian published his text from 2018, in which the name of the former foreign minister was involved in the scandal with the sale of Bulgarian passports. Gotev quotes Katya Mateva, an employee fired by Zaharieva, who claims that the minister participated in the scheme. Gotev himself was fired from the Foreign Ministry in 1998 by Nadezhda Mihailova, which is probably the reason for his bad feeling towards the SDS and then GERB. His name was announced as Agent “Ivanov” by the Dossier Commission. In Brussels, he is a paid assistant to BSP MEP Ivo Hristov.
The attack against the nominated MEP lady Gotev continues on her website euractiv.bg. The media published in its opinion column a comment by PP-DB deputy Yordan Terziyski, who attributed a huge number of sins to Zaharieva. (For the column, a stipulation has been made that it reflects the opinion of the authors and not of the Euractiv Media network, which publishes 12 similar sites in Brussels – n.b.r.)
The most interesting, but alas, inaccurate in Terziyski’s claims is that Zaharieva is close to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The site even releases their photo. And actually
the former foreign minister is the only one mentioned by name on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry, headed by Lavrov, as an enemy of Russia
The supports developed by Terziyski are reprinted at Euractiv.com. After a few days, the same statements, already shared by MEP Nikola Minchev, appeared there.
His opinion surprisingly coincides with that of Terziyski – he uses the same words and phrases, although he spoke to Antoinette Rousi from Politico. She is a Bulgarian journalist.
Everything listed above is diligently distributed on Facebook by Terziyski and liked by PP-DB members and fans. However, their fellow MEP from PP-DB Radan Kanev personally apologized to his colleagues from GERB on Tuesday and described the attack as shameful.
Now these supports will probably be included as questions of various MEPs to Ekaterina Zaharieva during her hearing before the committees in the European Parliament. In Brussels slang, this is called “grilling” – roasting over a slow fire, and it’s not harmless at all. However, in 2010, GERB’s candidate for European Commissioner Rumyana Zheleva dropped out and was replaced by Kristalina Georgieva.