Philip Dimitrov Dimitrov ( bg, Филип Димитров Димитров ) (born 31 March 1955) is a Bulgarian
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...
,
Prime Minister of Bulgaria 1991 – 1992,
MP in the 36th (1991 – 1994), 37th (1994 – 1997) and the 40th (2005 – 2007)
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
, and
MEP from January 2007 to May 2007.
Biography
Dimitrov was born in
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and h ...
. He graduated from the
First English High School, Sofia, in 1973 and later he graduated with a law degree from
Sofia University
Sofia University, "St. Kliment Ohridski" at the University of Sofia, ( bg, Софийски университет „Св. Климент Охридски“, ''Sofijski universitet „Sv. Kliment Ohridski“'') is the oldest higher education i ...
in 1977, and then undertook further study in the field of individual and
group psychotherapy
Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group. The term can legitimately refer to any form of psychotherapy when delivered in a group format, ...
and worked with outpatients using the
psycho-dynamic approach. He worked as an attorney in Sofia between 1979 and 1990, serving as Secretary of the Bulgarian Attorneys' Union from 1989 onwards. Bulgarian media had alleged that his office served as a Communist-era secret police hideout. He reacted immediately by giving the first order, in spite of reluctance from his allies, to reveal information on any citizen's request about whether there was any data of his/her links with the
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of ...
, thus making the first break through the inaccessibility of the secret police files. The first act of the next Government was abolishing this order. Similarly in the context of the time false rumors were spread about alleged homosexualism, alleged use of Communist privileges for entering high school and/or university and alleged family connections with the Communist party.
Career
Dimitrov was active in the
Union of Democratic Forces, a broad coalition against the rule of the
Bulgarian Communist Party
The Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; bg, Българска Комунистическа Партия (БКП), Balgarska komunisticheska partiya (BKP)) was the founding and ruling party of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1946 until 198 ...
. He was elected vice-president of the
Green Party
A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence.
Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...
.
He became a member of its 'National Coordination Council' in 1990, and was its President from December that year until December 1994. He has been a member of the Executive Council of the UDF since February 1997.
Dimitrov led the UDF to victory in the
1991 election, becoming the first elected Prime Minister in 47 years who was not either a Communist or a
fellow traveller
The term ''fellow traveller'' (also ''fellow traveler'') identifies a person who is intellectually sympathetic to the ideology of a political organization, and who co-operates in the organization's politics, without being a formal member of that o ...
. His government was the first since that time with no Communist participation.He remained in office until losing a vote of confidence that he called in the late fall of 1992. During its term of office (until the end of 1992), his government managed to make the new democratic institutions work and started an ambitious set of democratic political and economic reforms. Under his administration, observance of human rights became an irrevocable legal and ethical norm and previous ethnic tensions and abuses were eliminated. Foreign policy focused on integration into Europe and the West. Bulgaria was the first country to recognize Macedonia (now
Republic of Northern Macedonia) unconditionally as a sovereign state. His government abolished the restrictions to private initiative and started establishing a free market system, which literally changed most Bulgarian cities within half a year. He insisted on the large-scale restitution of nationalized properties, although he himself had none, and his government made the first practical steps allowing citizens to re-claim property that had been confiscated by the state.
According to his opponents, Dimitrov is responsible for the collapse of the Bulgarian agriculture after 1991 by restoring the land of the state-owned cooperative farms to its legitimate owners immediately instead of allowing a gradual transition from state-owned to private-owned agriculture. The problem was that all of these owners were old people, who received small pieces of land, and they had no machinery and physical strength to cultivate these lands. The infrastructure of the cooperative farms (water systems, machines, buildings etc.) was left without any supervision, and it was quickly destroyed and stolen. This had a devastating effect for the Bulgarian agriculture. The production of agricultural goods collapsed, many people in the agriculture sector became unemployed, and the population in the Bulgarian villages dropped."
His government made possible the swift restitution of citizenship and property rights for all Jewish Bulgarian emigrants (see also
Jews in Bulgaria
The history of the Jews in Bulgaria goes back almost 2,000 years. Jews have had a continuous presence in historic Bulgarian lands since before the 2nd century CE, and have often played an important part in the history of Bulgaria.
Today, ...
).
He served in the 36th, 37th, and 40th legislatures of the National Assembly, having been elected in Sofia for the UDF on each occasion. In 2005, he was elected Deputy Speaker of the 40th National Assembly. He authored or introduced among other bills the Bill for Abolition of Mandatory Military Service and (several times) bills on preventing and sanctioning Conflict of Interest. He was a member of the Bulgarian Parliament Delegation for Relations with the European Parliament. In January through June 2007 he was a member of the European Parliament and Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
In April 1997 he was appointed Ambassador of Bulgaria at the UN, New York and from August 1998 to January 2002 he was Ambassador of Bulgaria to the US.
His inability to compromise led to vetoing his candidacy both for President (fall of 2006) and Leader of the list of candidates for the European parliament (spring of 2007). In spite of his quiet withdrawal, the UDF lost both elections heavily. In the fall of 2007, he was rejected by the government as a candidate for the position of Judge at the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that ...
(Strasbourg). In July 2008, he declared that he was voluntarily leaving politics for good.
In 2004 he was a Special Envoy of the President of the CSCE (
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent U.S. government agency created by Congress in 1975 to monitor and encourage compliance with the Helsinki Final Act and o ...
) for
Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...
and Azerbaijan. He was a visiting scholar in the
Woodrow Wilson Center
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) is a quasi-government entity and think tank which conducts research to inform public policy. Located in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Was ...
in 2003. Philip Dimitrov has taught political sciences in the
American University in Bulgaria
The American University in Bulgaria (or AUBG) is a private university located in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Established in 1991, today AUBG has about 1,000 students from over 40 countries on 5 continents (as of Fall 2019). Close to 50% of the student ...
between 2002 and 2008, led post graduate programme at the University of Toronto (2007) and was visiting professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia (2008 - 2009). He holds PhD in Political Science and is Distinguished professor (Reader) at the New Bulgarian University
Since 2004 Dimitrov has been a Member of the
Club of Madrid
Club de Madrid is an independent non-profit organization created to promote democracy and change in the international community. Composed of 121 regular members from 72 countries, including 7 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and 20 first female heads ...
,
an independent non-profit organization composed of 88 democratic former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 58 different countries. The Club de Madrid's objective is to promote "Democracy that Delivers".
In 2004 he was Senior member of the NED-CLS team for democratic experience exchange with Georgia. He was member of the Board of the
New Bulgarian University
New Bulgarian University ( bg, Нов български университет, also known and abbreviated as НБУ, NBU) is a private university based in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Its campus is in the western district of the city, known ...
, Honorary Chairman of the board of the George Marshal Association – Bulgaria and Program Director at the 'Bulgarian Institute for Legal Development'.
He was appointed Head of Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Georgia and served there between 2010 and 2014.
Since 2015 he has been member of the Constitutional Court of Bulgaria
In September 1999, Mr. Dimitrov was granted the Truman-Reagan Freedom Award for his contribution to overcoming Communism.
Family
He is married to Elena Gueorguieva, MD.
Publications
* ''For They Lived, Oh Lord'' - a novel, 1991 (The Balkans in the first half of the 14th century) (in Bulgarian)
* ''The True Story of the Round Table Knights'', 1997 (in Bulgarian)
* ''The Myths of Bulgarian Transition'', 2002 (in Bulgarian)
* ''Light of Men'', 2003(in Bulgarian) and 2019 (in English) (The history of the early church)
* ''Jumping into the Atlantic'', Woodrow Wilson Center, 2003 (in English)
* ''The New Democracies and the Transatlantic Link'', 2004 (in Bulgarian)
* ''Political Representation after Communism'', 2010 (in Bulgarian)
* ''Revisiting the Beginning of the Bulgarian Transition'', 2016 (in English)
* ''Brothers'' (2019) (History of the Balkans IX-XI century) (in Bulgarian)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dimitrov, Philip
Prime Ministers of Bulgaria
MEPs for Bulgaria 2007
Union of Democratic Forces (Bulgaria) MEPs
Permanent Representatives of Bulgaria to the United Nations
Ambassadors of Bulgaria to the United States
Ambassadors of the European Union to Georgia (country)
Christopher Newport University
1955 births
Living people
Politicians from Sofia
Bulgarian conservatives
Bulgarian officials of the European Union
Diplomats from Sofia