Bulgaria’s forthcoming cabinet will be made up solely of members of Boiko Borissov’s party GERB, Borissov said on July 18 2009.
 
Borissov’s party won a parliamentary majority of 116 seats at the country’s national parliamentary elections on July 5 and has decided to form a minority government without involving other right-wing parties in the cabinet.
 
Speaking in Germany, where he met German chancellor Angela Merkel at Christian Social Union congress in Bavaria, Borissov said that GERB would take sole responsibility for governing.
 
This was a consequence of the majority in Parliament that the electorate had given it, and it would not be appropriate to draw in other parties that had won only a small number of seats, he said.
 
However, Borissov said that he had invited a member of Ivan Kostov’s cabinet – which was voted out of office in 2001 after serving a full term – prompting Telegraf Daily to speculate that this was former environment ministerEvdokiya Maneva, Bulgarian news agency Focus said.
 
Bulgarian National Television said that while in Germany, Borissov had been lobbying for the unblocking of EU structural funds for Bulgaria.
 
Two German conservative MEPs, Markus Ferber and Werner Lange, among the harshest critics of Bulgaria, have been urging that the flow of EU structural funds to Bulgaria continues to be blocked.
 
After talks with Lange, who heads the German European People’s Party delegation in the European Parliament, Borissov said that demonstration of clear political will in Bulgaria to make positive changes would restore confidence in the country.
 
Ferber said that he would initiate a discussion in Brussels to get a six-month extension on closing landfills that do not comply with EU rules, so that Sofia would not have to pay fines to the EU at a time of severe economic crisis.
 
Borissov, senior GERB minister and future interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and GERB MEP Roumyana Zheleva, who has been named as a possible foreign minister, said that the GERB government would work to regain the confidence of Bulgaria's European partners, for transparent expenditure of EU funds and for the elimination of corruption in the highest echelons of power.
 
The Bulgarian delegation had talks with Horst Seehofer, minister-president of Bavaria and CSU chairman, as well as with Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.
 
Borissov and Herrmann discussed GERB's programme for security and the possibility of reducing trans-border crime. Herrmann is expected to visit Bulgaria shortly at Borissov's invitation. 
 
The GERB delegation conferred with Gunther Beckstein, former interior minister and minister-president of Bavaria, the GERB press office told BTA.
 
The sides reached agreement on a number of joint projects in security. The measures which GERB will take to fight corruption and guarantee the rule of law in Bulgaria were in the focus of the conference. Changes in the Interior Ministry system were also discussed. 
 
Earlier, Merkel congratulated Borissov on the success of his party at the parliamentary elections and the mandate given to Borissov to form a government.
 
"As a future Prime Minister, you will have the vital task to pull your country out of the economic crisis," Merkel told Borissov.
 
Bulgarian-language media said that Borissov’s visit to Germany could mean that he would not keep to the date he set earlier, July 21, to announce his cabinet. This may now take place only on July 23. The parliamentary vote on Borissov’s cabinet is expected on July 28.