Junior Coalition Partners to Determine Bulgaria's New Education Minister

The parties constituting the junior coalition partner – the Reformist Bloc (RB) will determine on their own the candidate for new education minister of Bulgaria.

This became clear after a meeting between representatives of RB and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov on Friday.

The meeting was attended by all leaders of the parties constituting RB except for Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva who heads the Bulgaria for Citizens Movement.

Kuneva was absent due to her visit in the Netherlands, but she is expected to be back in Bulgaria later on Friday.

During their meeting, Borisov and his coalition partners discussed the situation after the prime minister demanded the resignation of Education Minister Todor Tanev on Thursday.

Tanev was asked to resign due to the systematic problems in the education sector and proposed controversial changes to the school curriculum which have not been subject to broad public discussion.

Tanev has not yet submitted his resignation as he still has not had meeting with Borisov.

Borisov granted more time to the coalition partners to decide on the nomination, extending the initial deadline which expired on Thursday, as the portfolio is from the quota allocated to RB.

Participants in the meeting with the prime minister claimed that no candidates were discussed.

Following a five-hour extraordinary meeting of RB on Thursday evening, the party did not come out with a candidate for the position.

The only nomination discussed was that of Kuneva, but it did not garner support from two of the parties constituting RB.

Among the other possible candidates mentioned were former education minister Daniel Valchev and Dimitar Tanev who served as chief secretary in the education ministry between 2003 and 2009.

A second extraordinary meeting of the executive council of RB will be held at 16:00 EET on Friday.

The meeting is expected to be attended by the leaders of the four parties still retaining their support for the government and MPs.

Representatives from the fifth party comprising RB – Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), which withdrew its support for the government at the end of last year, will not attend the talks.

DSB became an opposition party after the failure of parliament to adopt all the amendments to the constitution concerning the reform of the judiciary which led to the resignation of Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov.

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