site.btaGERB Leader Borissov Says He "Always Promotes Balkan Stream", "Did Not Mention Peevski" in Talks with Trump Jr.

GERB-UDF Floor Leader Boyko Borissov commented on an article by The Wall Street Journal which mentions his meeting with Trump Jr. in Sofia. In an interview published Monday on GERB's official Facebook page, he said that the two had a working lunch, "reminisced about good times, and that was it". 

The Wall Street Journal article headlined He Drops Trump Jr.’s Name in Pursuit of Billion-Dollar Deals. It’s Getting Awkward, reads that "former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, still Bulgaria’s most powerful man,” saw an opportunity in April when Trump Jr. was on his Eastern European tour, to “advertise the pipeline and other Bulgarian assets.” Borissov hoped, the article adds, to “secure a meeting with the U.S. president he met in 2019” and was “seeking relief from U.S. Magnitsky Act sanctions for some of his close allies.”

"What's the scandal here, considering that even today we have paid BGN 1,050,000 to BOTAS? Why don't you ask how that contract was signed?" said Borissov. According to him, Trump Jr. did not make any offers. The GERB leader denied setting any conditions related to aiding his associates who are sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act. "I explained what our opponents did to us - they arrested us, kept us in cells, purged us. I recounted how they placed Magnitsky sanctions on the man who got us into the European Banking Union and the Eurozone. I did not mention Peevski," Borissov added.

"I always promote the Balkan Stream," Borissov said. "His father allowed me to build it and did not let, that is President Donald Trump, Bulgaria be bypassed in favor of Greece, Turkiye, or Italy. And I told him here is what we have done, it is already operational and generates 900 million a year in profit," Borissov explained.

He was firm that Lukoil was not discussed during the meeting with Trump Jr. "Why would I offer Lukoil?" Borissov asked in the video. "The only ones who ever came to talk to me about Lukoil were [former Continue the Change co-chair] Kiril Petkov, [Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria Co-Floor Leader] Nikolay Denkov, and that company. And they had recruited a former officer from a certain embassy to try to buy Lukoil," Borissov further claimed in the interview.

"I have sat in front of the White House fireplace more times than Kiril Petkov has sat in the Council of Ministers," he also remarked.

The The Wall Street Journal article further reads: "Borissov joined Trump Jr. at a lunch with executives from the cryptocurrency company Nexo, which had invited the president’s son to speak. There, he told Trump Jr. how much he respected his father and brought up his desire for a U.S. investment in the pipeline, taking out a paper map, but he was speaking through a translator at a crowded table, the people said. Trump Jr. was bewildered by talk of the pipeline and made clear he had no interest in it, a person close to him said."