Bulgaria's President-Elect Can't Wait to Fire Ex-Spy Diplomats

Bulgaria?s president-elect Rosen Plevneliev (L) and his predecessor Georgi Parvanov (R) during Thursday's ceremony. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's president-elect Rosen Plevneliev declared on Thursday that the first he plans to do after stepping in office is fire all Bulgarian diplomats abroad who were exposed as former Communist State Security agents.

At the end of 2010, a special Bulgarian panel investigating communist-era police files, known as the Files' Commission, revealed that 192 Bulgarian Foreign Ministry employees have had ties with the country's former Communist State Security.

Recently, Bulgaria's current president Georgi Parvanov who was himself exposed as former State Security agent, imposed a veto on legal amendments which would have banned former State Security agents from the times of the Communist regime to take up key diplomatic positions.

However, the Bulgarian parliament subsequently rejected the veto.

On Thursday, Plevneliev who was endorsed by Bulgaria's ruling centrist-right GERB officially received a certificate confirming he is the country's president-elect. The certificate was handed to the next Bulgarian president by the Central Electoral Commission in a ceremony that took place in the National Assembly.

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