MEPS ARE preparing to question Bulgaria’s nominee to the European Commission about her husband’s business dealings at confirmation hearings for the new EU executive in Brussels next week.
Bulgaria’s foreign minister since last July, Rumiana Jeleva has been nominated by EU commission chief José Manuel Barroso to the international co-operation, humanitarian aid and crisis portfolio. With the commercial affairs of her husband, Krasimir Jelev, under scrutiny in the Bulgarian and German media, Ms Jeleva pledged last week to take legal action over an unflattering article in German newspaper Die Welt.
She said there was malicious campaign against her nomination. She has described her husband, whose background is in banking, as a person with nothing to hide, who takes public transport to work and cleans the dishes at home.
Saying the Die Welt report contained a “proliferation of libellous claims and offences”, she told Bulgarian newspapers the item was punishable under German law.
Before the report appeared, the co-chair of the Green group in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, urged Ms Jeleva to provide “total transparency on her husband” before the confirmation hearings. The Greens said yesterday they had nothing to add and said they might have to await her responses in the hearing before commenting further.
The European People’s Party, of which Ms Jeleva is a vice-president, has said she will provide “an explanation” in total transparency about her husband’s dealings. MEP Joseph Daul, the party’s president, accused some observers of living on rumours “because they have no responsibilities or commissioners to support”.
Mr Barroso’s new commission must be approved by the parliament. While it cannot reject individual nominees, it is empowered to reject the college at large.
Each of the 26 commissioners- designate will appear before the parliament for three hours in a series of hearings over seven days in Brussels next week and Strasbourg the week after.