Barekov had highest income among Bulgaria’s new MEPs – declarations

Nikolai Barekov, the former talk show host who leads the populist Bulgaria Without Censorship (BWC) party, is shown by his declaration filed to the European Parliament to be Bulgaria’s new MEP who had the highest income.

Earlier, separate reports by the National Audit Office and monitoring groups showed BWC to have spent the most on its campaign for Bulgaria’s May 25 2014 European Parliament election, including the most on media campaigning.

BWC, formed in recent months, outspent major parties such as GERB and the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

Standing in coalition with a handful of fringe parties, BWC got two out of Bulgaria’s 17 seats in the European Parliament.

According to a declaration posted on the European Parliament website, Barekov, when employed by TV7, was in a pay bracket of more than 10 000 euro a month and when with Balkan Bulgarian Television EAD, was paid between 5001 and 10 000 euro a month.

At the other end of the scale were Ilhan Kyuchuk, Barekov’s coalition MEP Angel Dzhambazki of nationalist party VMRO and Momchil Nekov of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, the last-mentioned best-known for supplanting BSP leader and list leader Sergei Stanishev through preferential voting.

Kyuchuk stated an income of 500 to 1000 euro a month as an adviser to a political party and parliamentary secretary. Dzhambazki stated incomes from his party but not in which category they fell, as did Nekov.

Stanishev, who quit his seat in Bulgaria’s National Assembly to take up a seat as one of four BSP MEPs, declared incomes as member of the 41st and 42nd National Assemblies, as leader of the parliamentary group and as a member of the BSP national council. Each fell into the 1001 to 5000 euro a month bracket.

Also in this bracket were the BSP’s Georgi Pirinski and the MRF’s Nedzhmi Ali and Iskra Mihailova, a former minister in the current cabinet.

New MEPs Tomislav Donchev, Emil Radev and Eva Paunova of GERB declared incomes in the 1001 to 5000 euro a month range.

GERB’s Maria Gabriel, Andrei Kovachev, Vladimir Uruchev – all three returning MEPs – declared incomes from 5001 to 10 000 euro, as did the BSP’s Iliyana Yotova and the Reformist Bloc’s Svetoslav Malinov.

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