Bulgarian Government Waits for EBRD’s Position on Mitrev

The Bulgarian government can not release the country’s representative on the borad of directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Kalin Mitrev, from the post, the Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said after the meeting of the Council of Ministers on 7^th of September. Mitrev was named in media reports about an alleged Azerbaijani money laundering scheme.

The Bulgarian government nominates and proposes, but does not appoint the representative on the EBRD board of directors. In this sense, if the expectation is that we can, by a government decision, dismiss, so to speak, Mr Mitrev, that goes beyond our powers, Goranov said. The Bulgarian Government may express a position to the Bank regarding some or other actions of Mr. Mitrev. At this stage, from what we received from Mitrev as an explanation, we do not see any violations of the Bulgarian legislation, so we are waiting to see the position of the EBRD, Goranov added.

In a statement to the media on 6^th of September, the Vladislav Goranov, said that the finance Ministery was carrying out an investigation in connection with the reports about the alleged Azerbaijani money laundering scheme.

We follow the topic closely and are concerned about the information published in the media, Goranov said and added that he ordered a check on the data from the reports and requested an explanation from Kalin Mitrev, the representative of Bulgaria on the Board of Directors of the EBRD.

On the basis of the information gathered, the government will comment on the case at its regular meeting on Thursday, the MoF announced.