Bulgarian PM Slams French Ambassador over Turkey

Outgoing French Ambassador Etienne de Poncins (left) has come under criticism by Bulgarian PM Borisov. Photos by BGNES

Prime Minister Borisov has joined President Parvanov in criticizing the outgoing Ambassador of France to Bulgaria, Etienne de Poncins.

Borisov slammed His Excellency during a joint news conference with Turkey's PM Erdogan in Sofia on Monday.

The reason for that was the suggestion made by Etienne de Poncins, who has just completed his three-year term in Sofia, in his lecture organized by the Atlantic Club that Bulgaria should declare clearly its position on whether Turkey should join the EU.

"I don't see any reason I should respond to what the French Ambassador said upon his departure from Bulgaria. We are a sovereign nation, and we treat the foreign ambassadors with the proper respect but they have far exceeded their rights in Bulgaria when making statements on numerous occasions," Borisov said while also declaring Bulgaria's support for Turkey's EU accession.

"I think that in the presence of my colleague Erdogan when we are solving such complicated issues between Bulgaria and Turkey, which have existed for centuries, commenting on what a clerk said upon leaving Bulgaria does not make sense, you shouldn't even be asking me about it," he declared, while also going a bit further in his criticism of Etienne de Poncins.

"If the Bulgarian Ambassador in Paris goes to Sarkozy and gives him the advise on what to do in the same way, I think the French reaction will be that our envoy will be expelled from France," the Bulgarian Prime Minister stated.

In his farewell lecture at the Atlantic Club in mid-September, His Excellency pointed out that Bulgaria should re-think the communist period before 1989; he expressed dismay at the existence of a monument of Bulgarian communist dictator Todor Zhivkov in his home town Pravets. He further said Bulgaria should have tighter control over the spending of EU money for Roma integration.

His suggestion that Bulgaria should mull appointing a minister for the Roma led Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov to criticize him for being "patronizing" and seeking to mentor the Bulgarian state.

In his interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) Ambassador Etienne de Poncins explicitly thanked the Bulgarian Prime Minister Borisov for his position on the so called Roma issue.

As the issue with the expulsion of Bulgarian and Romanian Roma from France unraveled in the past few months, the Bulgarian government did not react strongly the same way as Romania's has.

Borisov's comments on Monday about the words of De Poncins with respect to the Bulgarian position on Turkey's EU accession runs counter to his traditionally warm ties with the French administration of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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