Who Is Stefan Yanev - New Bulgarian Caretaker Prime Minister?

The caretaker Prime Minister, General of the Reserve Stefan Yanev is 60 years old and has been in the military for 31 years. Since May 10, 2017, he has been the Secretary of the President for Security and Defense.

For the last time, he was in the spotlights of the media during the changes last summer in the Law on the National Security Service, which Rumen Radev vetoed, but the MPs overruled his veto. Yanev commented on Radev's motives and explained why it was a mistake that the veto was not accepted.

In the caretaker government of Ognyan Gerdzhikov, Stefan Yanev was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense and as such was directly responsible for the organization of the general elections in April 2017. There was no serious criticism of his role, but this is not the case with regard to the post of Defense Minister. Yanev has been criticized for allowing the choice of a fighter jet for the needs of the Bulgarian army to be predetermined as Defense Minister.

In the last days of the caretaker government, the commission in the Ministry of Defense, working on the topic, proposed to negotiate a deal with the Swedish company SAAB for "Gripen". The GERB government accused the president and Yanev of lobbying the decision, and ultimately made a new procedure.

The offer of the American "Lockheed Martin" for the F-16 Block 70 was chosen in the second procedure. Stefan Yanev did not accept the criticism, pointing out that the final decision was left in the hands of the regular government.

Yanev graduated from the artillery military school in Shumen and began building a career in the army in 1983, when he was appointed commander of an artillery platoon in Asenovgrad.

In ten years he became a division commander, and joined...

Continue reading on: