Next Tuesday, October 1, Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva will head the International Monetary Fund. Thus, Kristalina Georgieva becomes the highest-ranking Bulgarian in the world. Earlier, Irina Bokova who served as UNESCO Director General was in this elite company.

Practically, Kristalina Georgieva did not face any competition for the position of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund after French Christine Lagarde left this position to head the European Central Bank. Thus, it turned out that the last two heads of the IMF are women. It is interesting to remind that since the time of the Bretton Woods International Monetary Conference of 1944 the World Bank has been headed by a US national and A European citizen has been in charge of the International Monetary Fund. The tradition was kept, because Kristalina Georgieva was the EU candidate for the position of Managing Director of IMF. Perhaps, we should note that the appointment of Kristalina Georgieva as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund brings two new elements, although the tradition has been kept. Until recently a person aged 65 or above was unable to head the IMF, but this rule had to be urgently amended, because the Bulgarian recently turned 66. The second novelty is that Georgieva is the first person from an emerging market economy to head the world’s crisis lender with its 1 trillion USD in resources. Now the last say about the allotment of loans to countries in need, the development of recommendations and rescue plans for countries in financial difficulties will depend in biggest extent to the Bulgaria who heads the IMF. However, Georgieva is not worried about this huge responsibility, because when we look at her CV, we will find out that she gained plenty of experience and skills in this field. Kristalina Georgieva graduated political economy at the University of National and World Economy in Sofia (formerly Karl Marks Higher Institute of Economics). She defended a doctoral dissertation at this university. In August 1993 she started work at the World Bank and in 2017 she occupied the second most-important position at this international financial institution- the one of Chief Executive Director. Earlier, between 2010 and 2014 she served as EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response and before she left the European Commission she was appointed European Commissioner Vic-President for Budget and Human Resources. This brilliant career ended at her own will when in 2016 she decided to leave Brussels and return to Washington to join the World Bank again.

Experts and observers contends that Georgieva has the necessary qualification, knowledge and skills to head the IMF. She has good command of Bulgarian, Russian (she was the World Bank Director for the Russian Federation) and English. In political aspect, Georgieva is believed to support the European People’s Party.

I am looking forward to working with all 189 member countries, the Executive Board, the IMF staff and all our partners in the coming years, the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva assures in a special address.

The immediate priority in her five-year term will be to assist the counties reduce to the minimum the risk of crises and be prepared to deal with possible crises. The long-term objective of the IMF will be to support stable monetary, fiscal and structural policies for making the economies even stronger and improve people’s life standard.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov