The caretaker government reacted to Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova’s recent comments on who she would vote for if she were a Bulgarian citizen, saying they were an attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. Read more.
Mitrofanova’s last interview was broadcast on 19 April on the Youtube channel of the influencer Martin Karbovski. He asked the ambassador who she would vote for if she were a Bulgarian citizen and she replied;
“If I’m a Bulgarian voter, but I’m aware of politics, I’m aware of what’s happening, and so on, I would probably vote either with ‘I don’t support anyone’ or for Kostadinov,” said Mitrofanova. “I do not support anyone” is an option in the Bulgarian Electoral Code, which gives voters the right to declare they do not want to vote for any candidate or party.
According to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, “the statement made by Ambassador Mitrofanova on an internal political topic for Bulgaria is inappropriate”. The government has also cautioned that her words could violate the Vienna Agreement, laying down protocol for diplomatic relations.
Mitrofanova’s presence in Bulgaria has so far been marked by a series of scandals, as on the Bulgarian national holiday of 3 March this year, she compared the Liberation of Bulgaria from the troops of the Russian Empire to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Finns and Bulgarians participated in the battles for the liberation of Bulgaria.
In June 2022, the Russian embassy in Sofia announced the start of a donation operation supporting the Russian army that invaded Ukraine. On the Facebook page of the diplomatic mission, an appeal was published to send money for “assistance to the military, participating in the special operation to protect the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics”.
On 30 March, the influential Bulgarian think tank Centre for the Study of Democracy announced that the Russian embassy in Bulgaria has the most significant influence on society compared to all other foreign diplomatic missions in the Balkan countries. The conference was organised with the media partnership of EURACTIV Bulgaria.
(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)
More on the same topic…
EU Commission optimistic on asylum pact approvalThe European Commission is optimistic it will finalise the reform package on the ‘thorny’ topic of asylum before next year’s European elections, though experts on the matter are not as positive.
Source: euractiv.com
