
Boyko Borisov's son-in-law is the new head of Bulgarian diplomacy
GERB MP from Pernik, 33-year-old Georg Georgiev, is Bulgaria's new foreign minister. The young foreign minister began his political career 10 years ago as the leader of GERB's youth organization, and is better known for that than for being appointed deputy foreign minister at the age of 25 without any experience in the department.
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Georgiev served as Deputy Foreign Minister in Borisov's governments from November 2014 to January 2017, when he was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva in the third government of Boyko Borisov – without any seniority, specialization or experience. He will hold that position until the end of the government's mandate in 2021.
Georgiev's only publicly known international experience at the time was that he was an assistant to Bulgarian MEPs from GERB. This was a time when relations with the Republic of North Macedonia sharply deteriorated.
In April 2019, as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Georgiev opened the fifth meeting of the Mixed Multidisciplinary Expert Commission on Historical and Educational Issues between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia at the Boyana Residence.
"We are very happy and satisfied that we managed to reach an agreement on important topics regarding the joint celebration of the holidays of St. Cyril and Methodius, St. Clement of Ohrid, St. Naum and Tsar Samuil. This is a kind of success on topics that until recently marked division, and now we are already finding a common path that does not divide us," said Deputy Minister Georgiev at the time.
Georgiev emphasized on the same occasion that within the framework of the agreements reached on topics such as education and culture, good results have been achieved, which in turn would contribute to the implementation of the Agreement on Friendship, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia.
"I would like to emphasize that the main focus of the work of this commission is our common history. We are not talking about a 'shared' history here, because we share history with our neighbors and with countries around the world. Common history is what unites us and what we seek as a basis for cooperation and friendship between our countries," he added.
In April last year, Georgiev reacted violently to the statement of Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport Aleksandar Nikoloski, who, speaking about the reception of Macedonian President Gordana Siljanovsa Davkova at Bulgarian President Rumen Radev's without the Macedonian national flag, said that "obviously the host is not civilized and that only the domestic servants are more miserable than them."
"Another rude provocation from official Skopje is a fact. I know its author well, namely former MP and current minister Aleksandar Nikoloski. I had the opportunity to meet the same person from the PACE, she has never been distinguished by particular political sharpness. However, the problem is that people with a similar mentality are left by the RSM government to be exponents of positions that are ultimately harmful to the European future of the former Yugoslav republic. In other words, each country chooses its own future. The same applies to our western neighbors, to whom our fraternal feelings, unfortunately, will not help this time. Brussels remains a too distant and obviously unattainable chimera for Skopje, which still does not understand the meaning of the European project. This is too bad, of course. I am convinced that, apparently, tens of thousands of RSM citizens, holders of Bulgarian passports due to family ties in our country, would like there to be no borders between the states again. "However, the authorities in the RSM clearly have a vision of deepening their Balkan and European isolation," Georgiev wrote.
He previously shared the statement of party leader Boyko Borisov, who demanded Nikoloski's resignation due to hate speech and insults towards the Bulgarian people.
Starting today, after the election of a regular government in Bulgaria headed by Prime Minister Rosen Zheljazkov, Skopje's attention will turn to Sofia, as Mickoski's government has been waiting for a political government in the neighboring country so that they can hold talks on the proposal of the Republic of North Macedonia for amendments to the Constitution to enter into force after the country becomes a member of the EU. A condition for holding a second intergovernmental conference and opening the clusters of the negotiations of the Republic of North Macedonia with the EU is that the Bulgarians are included in the country's Constitution.
Macedonian Foreign Minister Timcho Mucunski said two days ago that the government wants to talk to a political government in Bulgaria with full legitimacy in order to avoid the bad practices of the past. The Macedonian government's approach is to be the best government in front of the citizens, but also in the eyes of European partners in terms of delivered reforms and compliance with the Union's common security policy.
"I want the European Union to say: This is the government that delivers reforms, but at the same time, let's find a rational solution with Bulgaria that will guarantee that after six months we will not return to a position where they will again find reasons to block our European integration," said Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Timcho Mucunski in an interview with "Top Tema".
Georgiev's political career
Mucunski's colleague in Sofia, Georg Georgiev, became a GERB MP in the 2014rd National Assembly in 23 at the age of 43, after graduating in political science from Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and earning a master's degree in political consulting. While he was an MP, he participated in the "Future European Leaders" program of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a course at the Chinese Diplomatic Academy. In the elections on 26.03.2017. he failed to enter parliament.
Shortly before that, he was filmed kissing Boyko Borisov's hand, but so was GERB Deputy Chairman Tsvetan Tsvetanov. This happened at the winter university of the party's youth organization in Sandanski in 2017, when this is how forgiveness is traditionally sought from parents.
In 2021, the website "Ptica" raises questions about the financing of a new house for Georg Georgiev in the village of Lozen.
He is close enough to Boyko Borisov that the GERB party leader became his best man in August 2022 at his wedding to weather forecaster and later journalist Violeta Mancheva from Bulgaria's ON AIR TV.
Over the years, he passionately defended the party and its leader Boyko Borisov.
In January 2022, after Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's parliamentary hearing, ministers and heads of special services told BNT that they had told "outright lies about deficits in the army, about the lack of funds, about insufficient funding."
"In the last Borisov government, we were one of the few countries in Europe that fulfilled its obligation to allocate 2% of GDP to defense, for which the former prime minister was congratulated by the then US administration," Georgiev added. According to him, the army was not only well-equipped, but also over-equipped and over-financed in the last 10 years.
Statistics show a different picture. From 2011 to 2022, Bulgaria's defense spending was at most 1,5% of GDP. With one exception – 3,1% in 2019, when Borisov's government paid for an order for F-16 aircraft for almost 2,2 billion leva at once.
In July 2024, Georgiev also spoke out about the scandal surrounding Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev's last-minute instruction to Bulgaria's permanent representative to the UN to change his position on declaring the Srebrenica massacre a genocide. Amid suspicions of Borisov's personal intervention in the case, Georgiev pointed out that GERB had nothing to do with it, that "diplomacy loves silence" and that foreign policy was the prerogative of the Council of Ministers.
As foreign minister, he will have to work with President Rumen Radev, who, according to the Constitution, also has partial authority over foreign policy. But Georg Georgiev accused him (and the presidential administration) of being a source of pro-Kremlin propaganda, of “stubborn distancing from everything our country does” and of conscious and deliberate opposition.
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