Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev expressed Bulgaria’s support for Jose Barroso’s candidacy to serve a second consecutive term as European Commission President, the Government media office said on June 18 2009. Stanishev made the statement in Brussels where he is taking part in the European Council meeting.
 
Stanishev cited Barroso’s support for Bulgaria’s European Union membership as the main reason why the country was supporting his candidacy.
 
Stanishev said that at this stage Bulgaria was not thinking about who should be its European Commissioner but rather that the commissioner must have the energy portfolio. Currently Bulgaria’s representative in the EC is Meglena Kouneva, European Consumer Protection Commissioner.
 
Kouneva won a seat in the European Parliament at the June 7 2009 elections but so far has not yet announced whether she wants to be a commissioner or an MEP.
 
"What I want to do is to keep working as an European politician but I will take my decision after the new European Parliament starts work," she told a June 8 news conference.
 
The question of Bulgaria’s representative on the EC will become more complicated because Bulgaria is going to have a new government after the July 5 2009 national parliamentary elections. Kouneva is a member of the National Movement for Stability and Progress, part of the ruling coalition with Stanishev’s Bulgaria Socialist party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and her nomination in 2007 was a result of an agreement among the three parties.
 
In these elections however the three parties are running separately.