Bulgarian Diaspora Minister Expected to Step Down without Feeling 'Scapegoat'

PM Borisov (right) said he expects his Diaspora Minister Dimitrov to resign in order to avoid double standards in the treatment of civil servants with communist secret service past. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov said he expected his Diaspora Minister to resign on his own as the government is being accused of double standards in the treatment of civil servants and diplomats who were agents at the former communist secret service.

Late Friday night Borisov suggested a kind of a tit-for-tat deal with the President, i.e. that he would dismiss his Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, a former collaborator with the communist regime's secret service once President Parvanov recalls all ambassadors with the same kind of record.

After earlier this week the so called Files' Commission, an independent body digging into the records of the former State Security (DS), i.e. the intelligence and secret police of communist Bulgaria, announced that 41 acting Bulgarian ambassadors and consuls were DS collaborators, the Prime Minister and his Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov have been tangled in a war of words with President Parvanov.

Borisov and Mladenov have demanded the recall of all "discredited" diplomats arguing those have lost the trust of the respective host nations, while Parvanov, who in 2006 himself was revealed to have worked as an agent under the name "Gotse", has defended the people with communist secret service past. Parvanov's signature will be necessary to recall any of the diplomats in question.

Parvanov and the Socialist Party that he formerly chair have slammed Borisov for double standards since Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov, a prominent historian, is a member of the Cabinet despite being known to have worked for DS himself.

"Foreign Minister Mladenov and I are going to offer President Parvanov to recall all ambassadors and consuls who were collaborators and informants of the former State Security, while on Monday we will recall all such diplomats that our government appointed so far. I am going to talk to Bozhidar Dimitrov on Monday because I don't want to offend him, and I don't want to make him a scapegoat. I expected him to resign on his own," Borisov stated on Saturday, shortly after opening the new Daskalovo highway junction west of Sofia.

The PM said that he did not want to confirm the diplomatic appointments made in the final days of the Stanishev Cabinet of the three-way coalition by was legally obliged to do so.

"Back then I told Parvanov – how can we send Kyuchukov in London, he was Kalfin's right hand. I was told: It is inconvenient to renounce his appointment, there will be a scandal," Borisov explained referring to the appointment of the Bulgarian Ambassador to the UK Lyubomir Kyuchukov, a deputy of ex Foreign Minister Kalfin in the Stanishev Cabinet.

On Tuesday, a special Bulgarian panel, investigating the communist-era police files, known as the Files' Commission, revealed that 192 Bulgarian Foreign Ministry employees have had ties with the former communist State Security.

Among those 192, 33 are diplomats currently working abroad Nikolay Mladenov pointed out, these include Ambassadors, Consuls and Deputy Directors of diplomatic missions in Great Britain, Germany, Italy, the UN (New York and Geneva), Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Russia, China, Sweden, Romania, Norway, Japan, Qatar, Kuwait, Syria, Egypt, Bosnia, Greece, the Vatican,Slovakia, Albania, Georgia, Armenia and Venezuela are among those exposed as former Bulgarian State Security's collaborators.

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