{"id":30476,"date":"2026-09-21T16:07:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.festivaldelladiplomazia.eu\/speakers\/maria-simeonova\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T16:08:50","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:08:50","slug":"maria-simeonova","status":"publish","type":"speakers","link":"https:\/\/www.festivaldelladiplomazia.eu\/en\/speakers\/maria-simeonova\/","title":{"rendered":"Maria Simeonova"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maria Simeonova is the Head of the Sofia Office and Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her topics of focus include Bulgaria in the EU, Black Sea security and the Western Balkans region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to joining ECFR in September 2020, Simeonova was a civil servant at the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance. She has previously completed internships at the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Bulgaria to the EU, and the European Commission as a Blue Book Trainee at the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simeonova holds a BA degree in International Relations from Sofia University and an MA degree in European Studies: Transnational and Global Perspectives from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Her master\u2019s thesis focused on coherence issues in EU external energy policy and relations with Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30474,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaria Simeonova - Festival della Diplomazia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Maria Simeonova is the Head of the Sofia Office and Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. 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