Meglena Plugchieva, who was appointed as an adviser to acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, has resigned. Plugchieva performed the role of foreign policy adviser to the caretaker prime minister, who on Monday also became the minister of foreign affairs.
This was reported to “24 Hours” by sources from the Council of Ministers. Plugchieva herself was not available for comment.
It is likely that Plugchieva’s departure is due to the cases in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs related to the preparation of the two external elections and the appointment of the acting prime minister as foreign minister.
Glavchev and Plugchieva have argued several times over who should become foreign minister, after the prime minister decided after less than a week in office to remove the initially appointed diplomat Stefan Dimitrov. The first proposal of the caretaker prime minister was to give the post to the deputy chairman of GERB, Daniel Mitov, but he himself refused the nomination after the sharp reaction from President Radev.
A diplomat should be placed at the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a caretaker government, insisted Plugchieva until the end, but Glavchev did not comply with her opinion. She herself refused to become Minister of Foreign Affairs, because despite her three mandates as ambassador of Bulgaria , has always been of the political quota and cannot be treated as a career diplomat.
“There are extremely good career diplomats. We are talking about an official government, which will include more experts, not politically colored ones. I have been three times the ambassador of Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein and in Montenegro, but I have always been a political quota of Foreign Ministry. I respect the principles, it is not right for a person like me to take the position of foreign minister in an interim government,” said Meglena Plugchieva in an interview with BNT.
“I was offered ministerial positions, which I refused. Dimitar Glavchev is placed in an extremely difficult situation and he needs people who have managerial, political and diplomatic experience,” she added at the time. Plugchieva said that because of the crisis with the foreign minister, Bulgaria is not doing well in Europe at the moment.
Stay tuned for details!
