Nickolay Mladenov handed in a Golden Laurel Twig to Ronald Van Der Giessen, Executive Director of the Oranje Fonds, for its work in Bulgaria.

“Thank you for your help to change the system. It is not easy to make a social system stop working with numbers and start thinking about the human fates and needs”, said Minister Mladenov during the ceremony, which was held in the Bulgarian Embassy in the Hague.

“I am glad that Bulgaria is not the state, which it was in 1992”, stated in reply Ronald Van Der Giessen.

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Deputy Prime Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, and Minister of Economy, Energy and Tourism Traycho Traykov also attended the ceremony.