Sat, Nov 21 2009
The Stara Planina order, Bulgaria's highest honour, would be granted to European commissioner for external relations Benito Ferrero-Waldner on Monday September 17, eubusiness.com announced.
She was to receive the award for her "outstanding role in solving the case of the Bulgarian medics in Libya and their return to Bulgaria," a press statement from President Purvanov's press office said.
The medics had been accused of infecting 400 Libyan children with the AIDS virus and were sentenced to life-in-prison after a trial that took eight years.
In July they were transferred to Sofia after negotiations by Benito Ferrero-Waldner and Cecilia Sarkozy, and subsequently pardoned and released by Presiden Purvanov.
Ferrero-Waldner would be made an "honorary citizen of Sofia" by Boiko Borrisov, a Municipal press office press statement said.
In July Sofia's municipal council voted to award the title to both Ferrero-Waldner and French first lady Cecilia Sarkozy "for their staunchness, strength and determination during negotiations with Libya and their unique contribution to the release of the Bulgarian medics."
Ferrero-Waldner will give a public lecture at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski on September 17.
Welcomed by the UK government, France and Germany, as well as the US, the naming of Belgium’s Herman van Rompuy as European Council President and Catherine Ashton as foreign policy chief has caused misgivings in some circles, including Turkey which believes that Van Rompuy will oppose Turkish membership of the bloc.
The dinner meeting of EU leaders to decide on the European Council President and the bloc’s new foreign minister and head of secretariat could take a few hours or all night, says host Fredrik Reinfeldt, Sweden’s prime minister.
Russia and the European Union have agreed on an early warning system if another natural gas cutoff looms. Some say that Bulgaria, among other countries hard-hit by the January 2009 crisis, is now better prepared. Not everyone is convinced.
Five Bulgarian films screened at the World Film Festival in Bangkok.
A complicated game, played partly in the dark, and with elements of everything from poker to tug ‘o war – that’s the way Europe’s leaders will come up with its new European Council President, foreign minister and European Commission.