Bulgarian Foreign Minister Roumyana Zheleva, whose nomination as International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response Commissioner was announced on November 27 2009, has welcomed getting a job linked to EU foreign policy.
 
Zheleva told Bulgarian media that she was flattered and pleased by the appointment, announced along with the rest of the candidate commissioners by European Commission President Jose Barroso in Brussels.
 
Zheleva, who became Foreign Minister in July 2009, said that she was glad that Bulgaria through its representative would have a role in building a common European foreign policy.
 
The Lisbon Treaty, which is to come into effect on December 1 2009, is intended to see a new impetus in EU foreign policy.
 
She felt a high level of responsibility in helping to build this policy, Zheleva said.

But Ivailo Kalfin, Zheleva’s predecessor as foreign minister and now a socialist MEP for Bulgaria, dismissed the job given to Zheleva as the most non-prestigious and non-priority portfolio in the European Commission.
 
The "international co-operation" title in Zheleva’s intended portfolio caught the attention, but there were at least three other commissioners working in this field, Bulgarian news agency Focus quoted Kalfin as saying.
 
These were the new EU foreign policy supremo Catherine Ashton, Latvia’s Andris Piebalgs, with the development portfolio, and the Enlargement Commissioner-designate, Stefan Fuele of the Czech Republic.
 
"Thus what is left from the international relations is outside the priorities of the European Union," Kalfin said.
 
He said that Bulgaria had some experience in fighting emergency situations, but this area was hardly an EU policy priority.
 
It was obvious that Bulgaria had been given one of the most insignificant European Commission portfolios, Kalfin said.