19 825 Macedonians, 14 231 Moldavians, 2 185 Russians, 1 743 Ukrainians, 1 825 Serbians, 1 029 Israelis and 456 Albanians have applied for citizenship since 2002. The Agency for Expatriate Bulgarians will have sole authority to issue certificates of nationality to prevent forgery. Prof. Dimitrov gave an interesting example – of 250 applications from Moldavians 249 were forged. Apparently these people had been tricked by middlemen. Bulgarian citizens, who lost citizenship prior to WWII, will regain it within six months. Among them are people living in Macedonia, which was part of Bulgarian territory before 1944. The minister added that middlemen charged 5000 euro in Moldova and 10 000 euro in Macedonia to issue certificates of nationality, and these people now live in luxury palaces. They usually put ads in the papers.

This was made clear after the regular 176th meeting of the Council of Europe. The stance of Bulgaria on issues like employment, social politics, healthcare and consumer activity were discussed at the meeting.

At the meeting on October 12th in Luxembourg, the Council will prepare solutions for the spread of the epidemic of swine flu. The project suggests strategic approach to the thorough vaccination of all countries in the EU.

By the end of the year, Bulgaria and all other EU countries will announce the commission for the purchase of swine flu vaccine. The conditions to begin the procedure are already met, clarified the vice-minister of health care Liubomir Gaidov.

“If the people there used to investigate politicians on duty, I leave this to their conscience,” noted Borisov.

He added that he isn’t interested in finding out if he was investigated with the motive that he was a mayor, and there could be an excuse for an investigation at any time.

Regarding the criticisms of Ivan Kostov (DSB) on the government’s actions, the prime minister said that the only thing he’s sure of is that the democrats from DSB support the candidate from GERB for the mayor elections in Sofia. Borisov says that this alone is a proof of their opinion on the government of GERB.

This was announced at today’s meeting of the party.

“Mihailova is a very experienced politician that can deal with a lot of issues. She can apply for many portfolios and do a good job. We still haven’t discussed her application with GERB and other right-centrist parties,” said the leader of the democratic party Martin Dimitrov.

The more powerful the EU commissioner is, the better it will be for Bulgaria. According to Dimitrov, the competition for the Bulgarian EU commissioner position is a very positive thing, which doesn’t lead to any conflicts of interest.

More than 150 people attended the meeting. According to the press center of the Ministry of foreign affairs, the ceremony started with the performance of the Children choir of the Consulate.

In her greeting for the Bulgarian community, dr. Jeleva emphasized on the active co-operation and assistance of the Bulgarian communities abroad as some of the top priorities of the new government’s foreign policy.

During the meeting, minister Jeleva answered many questions in a pleasant, informal atmosphere.

“I’m very happy, this is a great victory for Bulgaria. A Bulgarian citizen will lead such an influential international organization”, said the Bulgarian vice-minister of foreign relations Marin Raikov. “This success justifies the trust of the new government in Irina Bokova”, added he.

The new Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova was chosen with 31 supporting her.

France expressed their full support for the new Director-General of UNESCO immediately:

” A woman of honor, ex-ambassador of Bulgaria in France and a constant representative of her country in UNESCO, Irina Bokova is a person with experience on the international and European scene. She will be very valuable in this position”, states the communique of the foreign ministry of France.

“This is the first time UNESCO has a woman director. This is also the first time a candidate from a Central European country – Bulgaria – will take such a high position”, concludes the document.

“Active Endeavour” secures the presence of NATO in the Mediterranean and demonstrates the will of the countries-members of the Alliance to act against terrorism. Participants in the operation oversee all naval activity, escorting ships, stopping and searching of unidentified vessels, etc.

The Bulgarian government will discuss a project for a Fifth additional protocol in the Agreement for multinational forces in South-eastern Europe. The changes in the Agreement include the addition of a larger Bulgarian force with added responsibility in the headquarters of the operation. Thus, Bulgaria will take a larger part in the planning and activities of the naval project, including in missions.

The changes introduce the principles for activity according to the NATO standards. It also regulates the participation in the structures of the operation of countries with the status of observers. The project also regulates the rights of the commander of the “South-eastern Europe” division to sign treaties with a logistical or technical nature. The principle for a shared financial responsibility in the missions is also introduced.

These were the words of Veselin Zlatev, councilor of the prime minister on the issues related to regional development, when he was asked about the funding halt for several projects in different municipalities.

“Some municipalities are trying to realize projects that aren’t appropriate for the times of financial crisis, and the decision of the expert staff of various ministries is very justified. In this sense, the logical next steps for the municipalities will be to review their development plans and strategies.

They will no doubt realize that a large part of their projects are no longer fitting the social and economic environment, and while they were good propositions in 2004, their update for the current situation is inevitable.”

According to Veselin Zlatev, the efforts should be concentrated on the pressing everyday issues and the better servicing of the citizens. He emphasized that the priorities have to be determined for each region individually to avoid numerous applications for a single financial instrument with limited resources.

“This is an ambitious task”, said the Commissioner for Transport. He arrived to the meeting with Borisov in the Council of ministers using the metro stations which opened recently. He and the Bulgarian transport minister Tsvetkov took the ride between the stations “Vasil Levski” and “Serdika”.

I highly appreciate that these projects were presented to the European Commission, added Tajani.

According to him, a higher level of co-operation in the non-formal aspect are just as needed as the formal meetings on EU level.

“We decided to initiate a number of technical meetings to solve the transport issues,” clarified the Commissioner.

He added that on September 11th the European Commission approved the governmental decision to aid the modernizing of the Bulgarian raliways and promised the assistance of Brussels.

Tajani also said that he’s satisfied by the Sofia metro. “The stations look modern. The services are on par with the rest of Europe,” said the Commissioner for Transport.

Out of the 13 applications that the socialist party reviewed, 12 did not confirm their intentions and did not send motivation letters and CVs, stated the chairman of the Sofia branch of the party Rumen Ovcharov.

He reminded that ten years ago, he was in the same position as Kadiev.

Ovcharov stated that negotiations with other parties in the Coalition for Bulgaria already took place and next week Kadiev will be announced as the candidate of the whole coalition.

Kadiev stated that he sees his application as a natural development of the events that took place over the last four years. He added that he could have a flying start in the Town Hall because he’s already well acquainted with the issues in the municipality.