Sofia, December 13 (BTA) - In the President's Office, President Radev received the outgoing caretaker government shortly before a government hand-over ceremony in the Council of Ministers. In smaller ceremonies at the ministries, the new ministers declared their priorities.

Addressing the outgoing government, President Radev commended them for setting in place a new type of governance, transparency and care for people, for rolling out machine voting and stopping vote purchase. He also said that they had the tough task of managing a health crisis, an energy crisis and the economic and social consequences from them - amid the strong resistence from the old Establishment and media pressure.

He went on to catalogue all of the caretaker government's accomplishments: ending the pressure on businesses, increasing tax complaince, exposing misuse of taxpayers' money, reversing the fourth pandemic wave, makign sure all who wanted to get vaccinated could do so, safely returning students to in-person classes, improving the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, among others.

He said the attacks in Parliament's chamber earlier on Monday "by the most corrupt and compromised regime in the new Bulgarian history" are the strongest testament to the accomplishments of the outgoing government.

Outgoing Prime Minister Stefabn Yanev said his hope is that Bulgaria is different and even better after his two caretaker governments.

He said that the country needs a change and people expect a change.

Here is what the new ministers said as they took over from their predecessors:

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov:

You will see me often in the streets of Sofia. I intend to change the perception of what a Prime Minister should be. I want to be close to the people and feel their problems.

There are multiple crisis that the new government will take up: the floods in the past couple of days and how to help the affected people; the energy crisis and how to avoid a price spike for domestic users of electricity from January 2022; the progress of construction of the Bulgaria-Greece gas interconnector; the COVID crisis and how to step up vaccinations.

The efficiency of the staff in the public administration will be assessed and those who do well should not fear for their job. The job cuts in the administration will be 15 per cent, not 30 per cent.

Relations with the Republic of North Macedonia will also be a priority. Goodneighbourliness should not be a slogan. We want to have workgroups to address the existing sticking points in the two countries' positions.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Assen Vassilev:

As far as electricity prices are concerned, the coalition agreement provides for a stable prices until July 2022. There are ways to achieve that and the exact mechanism is yet to be developed.

There will be resources for the declared plans to make kindergartens free, to adjust pensions and maternity allowances. The collection of revenue by the National Revenue Service and the Customs Service is good.

eGovernment Minister Bozhidar Bozhanov

The first priority will be electronic identification, followed by scrapping some certificates and optimization of some processes.

There will be no overlap in the work of the eGovernment Ministry and the Deputy Prime Minister for Efficient Government: we will help each other.

Health Minister Assena Serbezova:

The Ministry priorities will be COVID-19, the total high rate of preventable mortality and emergency services. All of us know the priorities because we are patients. MORE