„I'm very happy that we will be hosting in Paris, but it still seems like it would have been best to host in our own country. I want to apologize to all my colleagues in the Ministry of Culture and the entire team that works for the UNESCO organization, because these were months of hard work and in the end it was said that nothing was done“.
This was what former Minister of Culture Naiden Todorov told bTV, after it became clear this week that Bulgaria, which last year won the prestigious hosting of a UNESCO session (the World Organization for the Protection of Cultural Heritage), is withdrawing from hosting.
This means that not only will we not welcome 4,000 delegates, but we will also pay 5 million leva from the state budget to hold the session in Paris.
He stated that an employee was seconded from the French Ministry of Culture who has worked in our MK in recent months, mainly for the organization of the UNESCO session.
“I am aware that it is very easy when there is problem, to find a guilty party, who is a former, without political support. It is unpleasant for me, but I understand it and I want to tell them “I forgive you“, he added.
And he recalled that in his capacity as Minister of Culture he had proposed that our country host this event:
“I was in Delhi during the session of the World Heritage Committee, together with a team from the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There we commented with the Deputy Director of UNESCO on the problems of the Bulgarian world cultural heritage and how we can solve them, how Bulgaria can once again be visible in the world with something positive. That is how the idea of Bulgaria applying came about.“
“Every year during the session the next host is chosen. During the conversation, it was mentioned that one of the options is for Bulgaria to host, because then our country will have the other more than anyone else. So I called my colleagues in Sofia, Deputy Minister of Culture Viktor Stoyanov, appeared before the Committee on Culture, presented the idea and it was approved by everyone“, he said and specified that this also includes the people who are now opposing the idea and claiming that our country is not ready for such an event.
“Prime Minister Glavchev expressed concerns that the next cabinet might not agree with this idea. I asked him if it was possible that someone would not agree with such a thing, and he said that we never know how politics develops and for this reason, I am asking for written consent from the leaderships of all parliamentary parties that they agree that Bulgaria should apply to host. And we received these consents, there were no objections“, Todorov also said.
And he specified that when holding this session, our country would pay for the stay, hotels and travel expenses only for “about 100 people, who are the main experts of UNESCO“. For everyone else, we only need to provide names of hotels where they can pay for their stay themselves.