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Post an EU jobConsumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has announced that she will lead the EU election list of NDSV, a Bulgarian liberal party founded by Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha.
Meglena Kuneva is one of the founding members of the liberal Simeon the Second National Movement (NDSV), which was launched in 2001. The movement was recently renamed the 'National Movement for Stability and Progress', while keeping the same acronym. Simeon the Second was an infant king of Bulgaria from 1943 to 1946.
NDSV won 42.7 of the popular vote in the 2001 elections, and 120 seats in the 240-seat parliament. But its influence has been declining ever since. In the next legislative elections in 2005, it received 21.8% of the vote and 53 seats. In the 2007 European elections, NDSV obtained only 6.27% of the vote, and won just one out of the 18 MEP seats allocated to Bulgaria.
Recent opinion polls show that it is uncertain whether NDSV can win enough votes to pass the 5% threshold needed to send an MEP to the next European Parliament. But polls also show that Meglena Kuneva is among the Bulgarian personalities that enjoy the highest degree of confidence.
Bulgaria has another liberal party – the mainly ethnic Turkish 'Movement for Rights and Freedoms' (DPS). In 2007, DPS sent four MEPs to the EU assembly, two of whom were of Turkish ethnicity. Unlike NDSV, support for DPS remains stable.
Kuneva said that she had received "not only the permission, but the support" of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to run for election in her country. She added that Barroso expected to be informed by all commissioners whether or not they intend to run for European election by the end of April.
"My colleagues and I will have the right to participate in the elections and obtain three weeks of leave for our pre-election campaigns. My leave will start on 17 May and end at the date of the European elections - 7 June. Afterwards, I will return to my regular duties as a European commissioner," Kuneva told Focus news agency.
Asked whether there was still a chance of her being Bulgarian commissioner in the next Commission, Kuneva indicated that she would be available for the job, but could not prejudge the European election results.
In 2006, Kuneva was nominated as Bulgaria's commissioner because as NDSV was, and still is, a member of the tripartite governing coalition, dominated by the socialist BSP.
Bulgaria will hold national elections in July, but at this stage it is unclear which political parties will be able to agree to form a governing coalition. The favourite for election appears to be GERB (Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria), a recent political project built around the personality of current Mayor of Sofia Boyko Borissov, closely followed by BSP.
Kuneva is on good terms both with Borissov and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev. This bodes well for the renewal of her mandate in the next Commission, which is expected to be appointed this autumn, analysts said. Her chances would be even greater should Barroso be reappointed, as her performance has been ranked highly by the Commission president.
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