Bulgaria announces new Cabinet

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Bulgaria's prime minister designate, former King Simeon II, has named businessmen rather than professional politicians in his Cabinet to tackle his country's woes.

Simeon was the first ex-monarch to regain political power in post-communist eastern Europe after his National Movement for Simeon II (NMS) won a June 17 general election, one seat short of an outright majority.

The new Bulgarian regime has pledged speedy reform -- giving themselves 800 days to improve people's lives -- as well as taking the country into NATO and the European Union, tackling corruption, speeding up reforms, boosting growth, cutting taxes and attracting foreign investors.

The former king also acknowledged his coalition partner, the Turk Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), by appointing the first ethnic Turks to sit in a Bulgarian government.

His government will have a Western-trained business profile with the top jobs of deputy prime minister and economy minister going to Nikolai Vassilev, a 31-year-old emerging markets analyst.

Vassilev has worked in Lazard Capital Markets, UBS Warburg and SBC Warburg Dillion Read.

Also named on the list on Sunday was Milen Velchev, 35, a specialist in restructuring external debt who has worked for Merrill Lynch in London, and who was given the post of finance minister.

Parliament is due to approve the coalition government on Tuesday.

Vassilev told Reuters: "We intend to begin fulfilling our election promises very quickly.

"With a flying start, we will continue privatisation, reform the financial sector and attract huge foreign investment."

The MRF were awarded the two ministerial posts of agriculture and emergencies. Ethnic Turks make up about 10 percent of the population.

Two other posts, including one of three deputy premiers, went to supporters of the Socialist Party of ex-communists.

Other members of the government are little known officials from the NMS.

The new foreign minister is Solomon Passy, founder and head of the Atlantic Club, a non-governmental organisation which spearheaded Bulgaria's drive to become a member of NATO.

Simeon told reporters: "I have always paid big attention to professionalism."

The former monarch acceded to the throne at the age of six after his father's sudden death in 1943 but fled the country in 1946 after a referendum abolished the monarch.

He has spent most of his life in Madrid working as a businessman.