With Kristalina Georgieva’s departure to the World Bank, Bulgaria must nominate a European commissioner. The current political vacuum in Sofia suggests that early agreement on a candidate will not be easy to find. Nor is the recent history of such appointments kind to Bulgaria. Their nominee last time, Rumiana Jeleva, failed to make the grade. She was the only nominee to be roundly rejected by MEPs and left an embarrassed government in Sofia scrabbling to find an alternative in Georgieva.
Now, with so many urgent challenges facing Europe, both the EU and Bulgaria need a smooth and orderly procedure to get a commissioner in place without delay.
The simplest and best solution would be to bring back Meglena Kuneva.
The daughter of a former dissident, Kuneva has an admirable record of service to the government of her country. After ten years as an adviser to government she was elected to Bulgaria’s parliament in 2001. From 2002 to 2006 she was deputy foreign minister, responsible for European affairs and for preparing her country’s entry to the EU.
So impressive were she and her Romanian counterpart Anca Boagiu in this role that I was moved in a parliamentary debate to describe them as âa pair of swans, appearing to glide effortlessly over the surface of the water but with their feet paddling away ten-to-the-dozen underneath.â And until recently she served as deputy prime minister of Bulgaria.
Anca-Daniela Boagiu | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images
Her record at EU level is no less impressive. Kuneva served as a member of the Convention on the Future of Europe. She became Bulgaria’s first European commissioner and distinguished herself as both a competent and popular choice. She drew on her knowledge of legal affairs in handling the consumer protection portfolio with suavity and deftness from 2007-2010, advancing consumer rights notably in the field of health care; and on her experience in journalism to advance the cause of data privacy for citizens. Though a latecomer in the first Barroso Commission, due to Bulgaria’s accession half way through the European Parliament and Commission mandate, she marked herself out as one of its pillars.
As consumer protection commissioner, Kuneva championed citizens’ concerns about online data collection (of personal data), profiling and behavioral targeting. She fought to enforce regulation of data on the internet. She strove to improve commercial communication and to fight commercial discrimination.
During her term in office, Kuneva proposed a common format for electricity bills in the Union and requiring banks to unify consumer credit rules. She also introduced the consumer market scoreboard and product safety management. She worked on four new directives on consumer protection, introducing better regulation of consumer credit, unfair trade practices, consumer rights, and timeshares. She brought the signing of the memorandum between the EU and China on product safety to a conclusion.
In 2008, Kuneva was awarded Commissioner of the Year Award by European Agenda and voted “European of the Year” by the readers of European Voice.
Kuneva led her party’s list of candidates for the 2009 European Parliament elections. She declined to take her seat in the Parliament, however, believing that she could better serve the public in other ways. In 2012, she became leader of her political party and in 2014 was re-elected to Bulgaria’s National Assembly. She was appointed deputy prime minister for European policy coordination and institutional affairs on November 7, 2014. In 2016, she was also given the portfolio of education minister.
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As might be expected of one educated in Sofia, Oxford and Georgetown University, Kuneva is fluent in English, French and Russian and has a genuinely supranational outlook. It is hardly surprising that she has received the Order of the Legion of Honor of France, the Order of Civil Merit of Spain, the Order of Prince Henry of Portugal and the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity.
Bulgaria has few candidates as well qualified to fill the gap left by Georgieva’s abrupt departure as Kuneva. Many EU citizens would welcome her return.
Sadly, Bulgaria has a track record of not supporting its best candidates for international positions. It was the case not only with Jeleva. When the country had a chance to secure the UN secretary-general’s post it abandoned its well-placed candidate, Irina Bokova, in the final sprint and put forward Georgieva instead. Result? Georgieva failed miserably as a candidate, trailing behind even Bokova in the final vote. Her only success was to undermine Bokovaâs chance to the become the first Eastern European secretary-general of the U.N.
Letâs hope that this time, when nominating the new European commissioner, the Bulgarian authorities will abandon the temptation for political maneuvering and simply choose the best candidate for the job. In this case, there is no debate: nobody is better placed than Kuneva to be a successful commissioner
Longer term, we need to change the way in which candidates for commissioner are nominated. Commission presidents have previously asked member countries to submit two or three names: few member states have complied. Yet with two or three names to choose from, including female and male candidates, a prospective president of the Commission could present to for approval to Parliament a team which is gender balanced and sufficiently well qualified. EU citizens would then get the best of the available bunch. This is a reform which should be written into the Treaties.
Graham Watson was leader of the ALDE Group in 2002-2009 and president of the ALDE Party 2011-2015.