Asen Vasilev

Asen Vasilev
Asen Vaskov Vasilev (born 9 September 1977) is a Bulgarian politician, economist, and entrepreneur. He is the co-leader of We Continue the Change, a political movement he co-founded with Kiril Petkov. Since 6 June 2023 he has served as the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Education
Vasilev earned a degree in economics from Harvard University in 2000 and continued studies at Harvard Business School.
Professional career
Vasilev is a co-founder and president of Everbeard, an airline ticket pricing company. It is partly funded by the Singapore National Research Fund and the first Skype investor.
Vasilev was the co-founder and director of the Centre for Economic Strategy and Competitiveness. He is a lecturer in the Program for Economic Growth and Development, a branch of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski” and with the Centre for Strategy and Competitiveness of Harvard Business School.
From 1999 to 2004, Vasilev worked as a consultant for Monitor Group in the US, Canada, Europe, and South Africa. He managed marketing and strategic development projects for large international companies in the fields of telecommunications, energy, mining, insurance, and several major consumer goods manufacturers.
Political career
In 2013 Vasilev was Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism in the caretaker government of Marin Raykov. From 12 May to 16 September 2021, he was Minister of Finance in the caretaker government of Stefan Yanev.
On 19 September 2021, together with Kiril Petkov, Vasilev presented his new political project "We continue the change". He was the leader of the party list in Haskovo and Sofia 23 for the 2021 Bulgarian general election on 14 November. The party won the most seats in the new parliament and formed a coalition government on 13 December 2021.
Vasilev became Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the short-lived Petkov government.
The Petkov government's mandate ended in late June 2022 after Prime Minister Kiril Petkov resigned following a no-confidence vote, and on 1 July President Rumen Radev asked Vasilev to form a new government.
One week later as prescribed by the constitution Vasilev informed the president that his party only had the support of 117 members, falling four short of the majority. "Unfortunately, we failed to gather enough support to implement the politics that our...government would have wanted to push through. We could not get the support needed to rid Bulgaria of corruption and make the state work for the people, instead of channeling taxpayers’ money into a few select companies that can use it to corrupt the political class. We hope that in the next elections, the additional four deputies will be elected by the people."
Euro adoption skeptic
According to Vasilev, the prospect of Bulgaria joining the Eurozone in 2025 is hardly realistic. Vasilev has courted euroskeptic sentiment aimed at blocking the country’s deeper integration in the European Union and adopting the bloc’s single currency. In his view Bulgaria is not ready to adopt the euro due to a high level of inflation and endemic corruption.
Controversies
Alleged fraud
Some former business partners have accused Vasilev of theft of intellectual property and illegal business practices.
“He is a fraud, but he is very, very smart. Extremely smart. We invested 15-20 million euros to develop the software, we had between 30 and 50 programmers in Bulgaria. He deceived not only me but also his friends. I was stupid and naive, and I believed him. He and several programmers took the code and went to China and sold it to the Chinese government after I found these customers. The software was owned by the company, and he just took it and sold it himself.”
Support for Lukoil
Vasilev was the main proponent for giving the Lukoil refinery in Burgas a derogation to continue using Russian oil. Thanks to him, Bulgaria has a two-year exemption from the EU's embargo on Russian oil to continue buying Russian crude until December 2024. The crude supplies the Russian company Lukoil's 190,000 b/d Neftohim refinery near the Black Sea port of Burgas.
"The secret service is ours”
On May 26th, 2023, MP Radoslav Vasilev makes public a five-hour recording of the discussions at the National Council of We Continue the Change party the previous night. "The Secret Service, the counterintelligence agency and the police - these are all run by our people, whose appointments were consulted with the relevant embassy," says a voice attributed to Asen Vasilev. Two days later Vasilev confirmed the veracity of the recording but said that his words were taken out of context.
Other activities
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Governors (since 2021)
References
1977 births
Living people
People from Haskovo
Harvard Business School alumni
21st-century Bulgarian politicians
Members of the National Assembly (Bulgaria)
Finance ministers of Bulgaria