Ursula von der Leyen will announce her European commissioners in a week, an attack has begun against Zaharieva's Bulgarian nomination

The former minister of foreign affairs of Bulgaria and candidate for member of the European Commission from the party GERB (member of EPP) Ekaterina Zaharieva is under attack. This is what the European edition "Politico" writes, recalling that in 2018 Zaharieva was involved in a scandal with the sale of Bulgarian passports.

As Euractiv reported at the time, a former immigration official accused Zaharieva of agreeing to a citizenship-for-cash scheme led by other senior Bulgarian politicians while she was justice minister (2015-2017). (According to Euractiv's publication, which is based on the statements of an employee of the Bulgarian Citizenship Directorate at the Ministry of Justice, in addition to Zaharieva, it refers to the then Deputy Prime Minister Krasimir Karakachanov and GERB MEP Andrey Kovachev).

Zaharieva rejected the accusations and no legal action followed, writes "Politico", quoted by Euractiv.

Her political opponents are also keen to recall her connection to the scandal, the publication reports. "Given that one of Ursula von der Leyen's main priorities is the rule of law, the old accusations cast a shadow over Zaharieva's candidacy," MEP Nikola Minchev from PP-DB and the liberal group "Renew Europe" told the publication.

This means that von der Leyen can easily choose former environment minister Julian Popov, whose Bulgarian party is linked to the Renew group. However, doing so would reduce the number of female commissioners to single digits.

Ursula von der Leyen announced today that she will delay the presentation of nominations for European Commissioners by a week. Thus, the composition of the future EC will become clear a little later than planned.