Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel gives up MEP seat

The Bulgarian says she wants to retain her post.

Bulgarian Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel is renouncing the seat she won in the May European Parliament election to remain a European commissioner, the Commission confirmed Tuesday.

She informed Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Monday, a spokesperson for the EU executive body said.

Gabriel led the list of the ruling GERB party, a member of the European People’s Party, and was elected on May 26. She will be replaced in the European Parliament by Lilyana Pavlova, a former minister for the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU, local media Novinite reported.

“There are five to six months ahead of the new European Commission. I cannot afford not to remain a commissioner, and in this period Bulgaria will not have a commissioner,” Gabriel told Bulgaria’s bTV.

Commissioners elected to the Parliament in late May have until the first plenary session in early July to decide whether they keep their MEP seat. They cannot sit in the European Parliament and stay on as a commissioner.

Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, who was also elected, hinted he would become an MEP. “Pleased my party won the #EUelections19 in Estonia and that I will continue my work in the European Parliament,” he recently tweeted.

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