Bulgaria's President to Have Anti-Corruption Secretary

Bulgaria's new President Rumen Radev will include secretaries on issues such as anti-corruption, the rotating EU presidency due next year, spirituality and culture, and science, his press office says.

The EU Presidency portfolio was not part of the team of Rosen Plevneliev, who formally left the office on Sunday.

The name of the anti-corruption secretary (who will also be second legal affairs secretary) has not been unveiled as of Monday evening.

Only a few of the names forming Radev's teams are made public as of his first day of office.

There will be five committees and five councils working with the Presidency.

The committees will deal with amnesty, granting Bulgarian citizenship, exemption of irretrievable bollowing, granting political asylum (not to be confused with refugee or humanitarian status, a task assigned to a special government agency) and renaming geographic sites of national importance.

Councils, which will also take part in decisionmaking, will focus on foreign policy, security and defense, legal affairs, spirituality and culture, economic and social development, and education, science and innovation, respectively.

In line with terms of office of predecessors, Radev has assigned to Vice President Iliana Iotova the competence of granting and taking away Bulgarian citizenship, granting amnesty and political asylum.