This content was published on Jun 06, 2023 – 14:11
SOFIA, June 6 (EFE). Nikolai Denkov, a 60-year-old chemist who several times served as education minister, has been Bulgaria’s new prime minister since Tuesday, with the task of bringing stability to a country that has celebrated five elections in two years due to deep polarization between political parties.
Denkov, who trained at study centers in Bulgaria, Japan, the United States and France, is a Doctor of Pharmacy and Chemical Sciences and the author of more than one hundred scientific publications.
He has worked as a principal investigator for the French pharmaceutical company Rhone-Poluenc and the US multinational Unilever.
Since 2008 he has been Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Saint Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia, and in 2021 he was elected a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
His research work has been honored with awards from the Ministry of Education and Sofia University.
His political activity began in 2012, when he joined working groups in the Ministry of Education and Science, and between 2014 and 2016 he was deputy minister of education in the executive branch led by Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, leader of the populist party GERB.
However, Denkov resigned due to disagreements with the government’s educational policies.
In 2017 and 2021 they again held this position as interim Executive Directors.
He was one of the promoters of the establishment in 2021 of the new reformist European party We Continue the Change, which is now head of government thanks to an agreement with the conservative and populist formation GERB.
In December 2021, he again holds the education portfolio, already with this European formation in power. This period was marked by an increase in the salaries of primary and secondary school teachers.
In the previous legislature, he had received a mandate to try to form a government in Bulgaria, but he did not get the necessary support. EFE
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