© Tsvetelina Belutova, Capital
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Nikolay Vassilev personally insisted that Asen Vassilev not be finance minister in a possible government. This was said to BTV by the candidate for prime minister proposed by Slavi Trifonov after the last parliamentary elections, won by “There is such a people”.
“Ultra-populists cannot be finance ministers. My idea is that he (editor Asen Vassilev) is not like that. My discrepancy with him is about BGN 5 billion,” Nikolay Vassilev summed up.
The first draft of the cabinet of “There is such a people” was announced hours after the end of the early elections, but after public disapproval it was withdrawn for revision. In the end, Vassilev was one of its withdrawn members, and the candidate for prime minister became the MP of the political force Plamen Nikolov. However, negotiations between the parties to form a government with the mandate of “There is such a people” did not lead to the gathering of the necessary support.
In the course of the negotiations, it became clear that Slavi Trifonov’s party had invited three of the caretaker ministers to join a possible regular cabinet. Negotiations were held with Finance and Economy Ministers Asen Vassilev and Kiril Petkov, as well as with Education Minister Nikolay Denkov. It was officially announced that no agreement had been reached due to discrepancies in the way state money was managed. Shortly afterwards, Asen Vassilev was personally attacked by “There is such a people” with a history of 10 years ago, related to a British company that has not existed since 2013, of which he was one of the leaders.
The accusation by Toshko Yordanov, chairman of the ITN parliamentary group, was theft of intellectual property. Asen Vassilev’s brief comment at the time was that he had won all the cases in New York in the dispute in question and that the actions of “There are such people” were in fact obviously a “coordinated attack by Toshko Yordanov and the MRF”.
“There were several conversations with Kiril Petkov and Asen Vassilev, some of which before I was nominated for prime minister. Slavi Trifonov has told me many times that he has a positive assessment of them. That was until two days before the elections. But there was only one. discrepancy – their views are too leftist and populist. They can be worked with, but not in the Ministry of Finance, “said Nikolay Vassilev.
He added that he was against the budget update because he was “the most generous in Bulgaria’s 1300-year history”. The former deputy prime minister predicts that if there is an update now, there will be a new one in December. “The reason is not digital, but mental,” Vassilev said.
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