Nadezhda
Mihailova was born on August 9, 1962 in Sofia, Bulgaria. She graduated
from the Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in 1985 and in 1991-92 went
on to specialize in foreign policy and public relations at the U.S. Congress
and at Harvard Universtiy. Between 1986-88 she worked as a freelance journalist.
She is also a member of the Union of Translators, having published over
3,000 translations of Spanish verse. She began her political career in
the Liberal Party. During the electoral campaign of September -November
1991, she was Chief of the Press Centre of the Union of Democratic Forces
and after the elections she was appointed spokeswoman for the government
of Philip Dimitrov and was also the Chief of the Press Centre. As an MP
in the 37th National Assembly, she was a member of the Parliamentary Foreign
Policy Commission and of the Bulgarian delegation to the Council of Europe.
She was appointed Deputy Chairperson of the Union of Democratic Forces
in 1995 and re-elected in 1997. On May 21, 1997, she was appointed Minister
of Foreign Affairs in Ivan Kostov's cabinet.
