The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen congratulated Iliana Yotova on her victory in the run-off of the presidential elections in Bulgaria.
„I congratulate Iliana Yotova on her victory in the presidential elections. From security and defense to competitiveness and our energy independence, I look forward to continuing our work together“, von der Leyen wrote in “Ex“. She concluded her message with the words: „For a strong Bulgaria in a strong Europe“.
In the second round, held on November 1, Iliana Yotova participated in a presidential candidate pair with Kiril Valchev. Their rivals were Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev. According to preliminary data cited by BGNES, the pair Yotova-Vulchev is convincingly winning the vote, but the final results have yet to be announced.
The runoff came after none of the presidential candidate pairs gathered the necessary support to elect a head of state in the first round on October 25. Then Yotova and Valchev received 528,951 votes, or 34.76% of the actual votes. 31.95% of voters voted for Gyurov and Kandev.
Ursula von der Leyen's congratulations put an emphasis on the future relations between Sofia and the European institutions. Among the topics she mentioned are joint work in the field of security and defense, increasing competitiveness and reducing energy dependence.
Sources: bgnes.bg, bntnews.bg