Kiril Petkov, 41, was appointed Prime Minister of Bulgaria on December 13, after having won, to everyone’s surprise, the legislative elections of November 14, with his anti-corruption party, We continue the change. This entrepreneur, who grew up in Canada and was trained at Harvard, claims to be firmly pro-European in this country which remains the poorest in the Union.
Your main electoral promise is to fight endemic corruption in Bulgaria. How are you going to go about it?
During the campaign, our party slogan was even “Zero tolerance for corruption”. Not a simple decrease or better control: zero tolerance! There will be no exceptions for anyone who uses public resources for their own benefit. The first step will be to create a very strong anti-corruption agency, which will have investigative powers and can intervene if legal proceedings do not start. This subject will also become an absolute priority of the Ministry of the Interior. For its part, Parliament has created an anti-corruption commission which will be able to look into ministries and public administrations. At the same time, we are moving towards the idea of changing the Superior Council of the Judiciary and, potentially, the Attorney General.
But he refuses to resign and you don’t have the two-thirds majority needed to force him to leave …
If we have an anti-corruption agency that really works, we can catch a few corrupt people on the prosecution side, put more pressure for change and get them to resign. I understand the separation of powers and the independence of the judicial system, we know that we are limited by the constitutional framework and the rule of law, but we will do everything in our power by remaining within this framework.
Are you ready to change the mentality of the many Bulgarians who put up with corruption?
If we can’t root out corruption within four years, there’s absolutely no point in being here. I don’t believe that corruption money speeds up projects, as they sometimes say. All the countries that have been able to eradicate it have higher GDP per capita. Fighting corruption helps ensure socio-economic development, attract investment and obtain a better brand image for the country.
Your country has the lowest vaccination rate in the European Union (EU). What are you planning to do ?
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