The German newspaper "Die Welt" has described Bulgaria's EU Commissioner-Designate Jeleva as a "gangster's bride for the EU". Photo by BGNES

The German newspaper Die Welt published Monday a profile article on Bulgaria’s EU Commissioner-Designate Rumiana Jeleva terming her “a gangster’s bride for the EC”.

The article of journalist Stefanie Bolzen (available HERE in German) states that the current Bulgarian Foreign Minister Jeleva has made a staggering career but describes her husband as a member of the mafia.

The article says that Jeleva’s nomination for EU Commission for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid, and Crisis Prevention is set for trouble in the January hearings at the European Parliament, and the trouble will be not just for Jeleva but for the entire Commission.

“I was not born a politician, and I will not die a politician,” the article quotes the Bulgarian Foreign Minister as saying. Yet, according to the author, Jeleva is not so calm at all as she is already expecting with lots of tension the afternoon of January 12, 2010, when she is going to have her hearing at the EP. Some of the MEPs are reported to be eager to “grill” the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, the candidate sent to Brussels by the Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, over the rumors about her husband.

According to Die Welt, Jeleva is rumored to be “incompetent and spiteful”, and EC President Jose Manuel Barroso would very much love to retain the outgoing Bulgarian Commissioner Meglena Kuneva instead of taking Jeleva on board.

The journalist says that Jeleva’s husband, Krasimir Jelev, has been rumored to have been involved in dealings with the Russian mafia along Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast.

“If my husband has anything to do with the gray economy in Bulgaria, then he is the only gangster who takes the public transport to work, and does the dishes at home,” Jeleva is quoted as saying laughing in an interview for Die Welt. The articles points out that there have been no concrete evidence of illegal activities against Krasimir Jelev.

It further explains that Krasimir Jelev works for the Central Cooperation Bank, which is part of the empire of the Varna-based corporation TIM – a business group which rumors have accused of many things such as money laundering – but no one has managed to provide any convincing evidence of that.

Die Welt mentions the recent call of Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, for Jeleva to clarify the issues regarding the rumors about her, or else face a very tough hearing at the EP.

“Thank God, I do not belong to the communist nomenclature, my parents were not communists, I am a self-made person,” the Bulgarian Commissioner-Designate is quoted as saying, while the article also mentions she has worked as a lecturer at the University of Magdeburg in Germany, teaching EU studies.

The article further describes Jeleva as a woman who knows what she wants but who also does not like admitting defeats when they happen.

In her interview for Die Welt, she is cited as saying she herself picked her new portfolio, which wields little prestige in Brussels, but later admits she wanted the portfolio of EU Neighborhood Policy – something she could not get since Barroso merged it with the Enlargement portfolio. In addition, there is the fact that the Bulgarian designate was in conflict of interests over the bids for EU membership of its neighbors Turkey and Macedonia.

The article concludes that in January it will become clear whether Jeleva is going to get the position for which she is aspiring.

The publication of Die Welt comes some two weeks after the leaders of the Greens EP Group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and of the EPP, Joseph Daul, mentioned at separate press conferences that there were discrediting rumors about Jeleva and the activities of her husband circulating in the European institutions, and questioning her suitability for EU Commissioner on those grounds. EPP leader Daul has expressed the European People’s Party support for Jeleva’s bid.