Delyan Peevski

Bulgarian businessman Tsvetan Vasilev accused controversial lawmaker Delyan Peevski of blackmailing him and asking to take over key companies in return for sparing Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank or KTB) back in 2014.

Controversial Bulgarian MP Delyan Peevski will now be protected by a national agency after data was received of a planned attack against him, the Interior Ministry has said.

Turkish Ambassador to Sofia Suleyman Gokce has refuted claims that his country has pressured Bulgarian politicians into taking sides.

Ankara "has never asked any Bulgarian politician to take sides with regard to another political or publicly important figure in Bulgaria," he told private national bTV station on Saturday.

Delyan Peevski, a controversial Bulgarian lawmaker and businessman, said on Friday he was selling his stake in Bulgartabac, a Bulgarian tobacco joint-stock holding company.

Peevski, whose name came to the spotlight after he was appointed to head the national domestic and counter-intelligence agency DANS in 2013, triggering nationwide protests, had a majority stake in Bulgartabac.

Bulgaria will launch a new tender for the construction of lots 1 and 2 of Hemus motorway, with the sections to be financed by the government budget rather than EU funds.

This was announced by Bulgarian Regional Minister Lilyana Pavlova in an interview for private NOVA TV on Tuesday.

Bulgaria has terminated the process for the selection of a contractor for the construction of part of Hemus motorway due to lack of EU funding, the Regional Development Ministry said on Monday afternoon.

Ahmed Dogan, the honorary chairman of Bulgaria's Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) party and lawmaker Delyan Peevski have been barred from entering Turkey, several media outlets have reported.  

The head of the Bulgarian government's press office has warned that yet another plot has been carried out, aimed at tarnishing the Prime Minister's reputation, during the latter's visit to London on Wednesday and Thursday.

Like nobody else in Bulgaria MP Delyan Peevski "embodies the oligarchic system of clientelism," Der Spiegel says in a recent article.

Peevski is "the most flamboyant" Bulgarian politician, with supporters calling him "a child prodigy" and critics tying his success to close relations with the "political mafia," Der Spiegel writes [DE].

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev has reiterated his intention not to announce his plans for the presidential election this year before the summer.

Plevneliev assumed office in 2012, and a new vote is due this October.