Bulgarian teacher alleges rigged selections for high-paying posts in European Schools

A Bulgarian candidate has alleged that national selections for teaching and librarian posts in the European Schools system are being manipulated to favour “insiders”, raising questions over transparency in the Ministry of Education and Science’s (MES) recruitment procedures for some of the most coveted positions available to Bulgarian educators abroad.

Veselina Koicheva, who was rejected at the document-screening stage in two recent selections for librarian posts, claims that the ministry is sidelining qualified applicants in order to appoint “our people”, as she puts it.

Her case adds to broader concerns about opaque criteria, unpublished results and inconsistencies between official requirements and their practical application, Bulgaria news portal Mediapool.bg reported

European Schools educate the children of staff working in EU institutions, NATO, embassies and other international bodies. Thirteen such schools currently operate across six EU countries, including four in Brussels. Since 2013, Brussels IV has hosted the only Bulgarian language section, where children of EU staff with Bulgarian as a mother tongue study according to the national curriculum.

To staff these sections, Bulgaria dispatches teachers, librarians and educational counsellors through a national selection process. For the 2025/2026 school year, 21 Bulgarian specialists are scheduled to serve in Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt.

The posts are highly attractive: monthly combined remuneration ranges from €4,400 to €12,000, including allowances for relocation, travel, dependants and school fees. National salaries paid by Bulgaria account for only a minor portion of the total, with the European Schools topping up the remainder.

Candidates must be Bulgarian citizens, hold a relevant university degree, possess at least five years’ experience in the school system and demonstrate language skills of at least B2 in English, French and/or German. Selection takes place in two stages – document screening and interview – with the minister retaining the final decision.

Opaque procedures and unpublished outcomes

Under a Council of Ministers decree regulating secondments to the European Schools, the ministry is required to publish information on competitions, including the results. However, the outcomes of this summer’s procedures were not made public.

The ministry argues that the process is an “internal administrative procedure”, not a labour-law competition, and therefore does not require publication. Legal experts counter that the distinction is insufficient grounds for withholding the results, noting that nothing in the rules prevents disclosure.

The ministry told applicants that job notices serve only an “informative” function and do not list all relevant criteria. Instead, detailed requirements are supposedly set out in internal rules approved by the minister – although candidates say these rules are neither attached to the notices nor clearly signposted.

Candidate claims shifting interpretation of rules

Koicheva argues that she met every criterion listed in the recruitment notice, including the requirement for five years of pedagogical experience. Her experience, however, was acquired abroad. She says neither the job announcement nor the governing decree specifies that the five years must be spent in Bulgaria’s domestic education system.

According to the ministry, this requirement is implicit in the internal rules, not in the publicly available documentation. Koicheva insists she was never directed to any such rules during the competition and accuses officials of attempting to dismiss her candidacy on unclear or selectively applied grounds.

“I was being played around, both on the phone and in person,” she said, claiming that the ministry was “looking for a way to reject me” in order to appoint someone already known to them.

Koicheva alleges that one of the successful candidates for the librarian position had just completed a 12-year mandate as a teacher in the European Schools and was effectively being positioned for another long-term posting. She argues that Bulgarian authorities delayed filling the position and continued to fund the teacher’s presence so that she could later transition into the new role once it became vacant.

For Koicheva, the story ends with a rejection for appoinment. Her case does not, on its own, prove that the competitions are rigged, but it casts yet another shadow over a process that ought to be fully transparent.

As the Education Ministry continues to interpret its own procedures “internally”, while applicants try to decipher the invisible criteria for admission, candidates for teaching posts in the European Schools remain faced with a closed door.

And when the positions in question are highly paid and partly funded with European money, a lack of transparency is not merely an administrative shortcoming, because it becomes a risk to the public interest.

With Mediapool.

Caption: The fourth European School of Brussels, in Laeken, has a Bulgarian section.