Another key figure will fight the elections for the 52nd parliament on behalf of Rumen Radev's coalition.
Former MEP from the BSP Petar Vitanov is tipped to be the leader of the list of "Progressive Bulgaria" in Pernik, News.bg learned from its sources.
He was also at the coalition's registration with the Central Election Commission for participation in the early vote together with Dimitar Stoyanov and Galab Donev.
A few days ago, Vitanov said that Radev would talk after the vote with all parties outside the status quo. "You will see an awful lot of prominent people, famous people, politicians and people who have never been involved in politics, but inspire trust," he said regarding which people will enter the lists of "Progressive Bulgaria", he added.
Petar Vitanov was one of the people in the BSP who sharply criticized the former chairwoman of the centenary party, Kornelia Ninova, and those around her. He was expelled from the party. In the BSP, Vitanov is close to the new chairman Krum Zarkov, during Ninova's time they were like-minded people.
Vitanov is a member of the European Parliament from 2019 to 2024 and head of the Delegation of the Bulgarian Socialists in the European Parliament. He has worked actively on the topic of the green transition. He advocates the idea that transformation must happen at a fair social cost.
He is a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN), the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVY), a substitute member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).
In 2022, he became the coordinator of the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
Petar Vitanov was born in 1982. He graduated from the First English High School in Sofia, then International Relations at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and International Finance at the New Bulgarian University. From 2013 to 2017, he worked in the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria as a state expert in the Directorate "International Relations and Protocol". In 2017, he was elected as a member of parliament from the Bulgarian Socialist Party in the 44th National Assembly and participated in the foreign policy and defense committees, as well as in the Delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.