Galery

1

By going to the Bulgarian – Greek border and by meeting the protesting farmers at the frontier line, the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov impressed Greece and especially the Greek media. “In case you didn’t know him until now and have not noticed him, now already his face is sealed in your memory. With a sport cap on his head in order to protect him from the cold weather, with an appearance and body of a bodyguard and with a style and manners of a regular visitor of the cafes who is always ready to intervene and stop two people from fighting”. In this way the Sunday paper Free Sunday pictured the Bulgarian Prime Minister in a special portrait placed on an entire page.

The author Dimitris Sotiropoulos spoke about the communicative charm of an experienced television star especially when he talks to the public and describes the Bulgarian Prime minister as an “honored guest” of the Greek media during the week. According to him Borisov has raised combined feelings of the Greek society and calls his meeting with the protesting farmers “a foul shot” of an European leader against the government of his neighbor country.

“In any case this meeting for Boiko Borisov himself is nothing unusual. His political culture and the way he manages Bulgaria since 2009 and before this the municipality of Sofia show a politician strongly tempted by the populism and with a great weakness for a way of governing through the media”, says the journalist. Dimitris Sotiropoulos reminds that Borisov has worked as a fireman through the years of the communism and for a while he was coach of the national karate team. After the fall of the iron curtain he starts his own security company. He was a bodyguard of the former communist dictator Todor Jivkov as well as of the former king Simeon II, who opens the doors to politics for Borisov by hiring him as a secretary in chief of the Ministry of internal affairs.

“The current stage of the career of Borisov is not so pink”, says Free Sunday due to the reason that his party does not have a full majority in the Parliament and is forced to cooperate with the other right parties in it. According to the author of the portrait this is also one of the reasons which lead to his appearance at the Bulgarian – Greek border and his meeting with the protesting Greek farmers. He calls Boiko Borisov “a prominent European”, who has decided to relate his name with the entering of Bulgaria in the euro zone. The publication quotes the assessment of the international currency board for the positive development of the Bulgarian economy in the last 6 months, however underlines that our country is very dependant on the foreign investments in a moment when the consequences of the world economic crisis are already sensible in the real economy.

Dimitris Sotiropoulos quotes the critics of Borisov who are blaming him in superficiality and rhetorical and that he is not at all capable to manage with the biggest problems of Bulgaria which are corruption and the “powerful Bulgarian mafia”.