Faces of Interreg: Desislava Tencheva on leading a Communication Unit at a Ministry

Seven questions for Desislava Tencheva

What led you to work in Interreg or in European cooperation?

The belief that life becomes richer, more interesting and definitely more fun when we share it with people from different countries and cultures.

If you had to define Interreg to a citizen using only three words, which would they be?

Togetherness makes a difference. 

That is what I try to explain to my 8-year-old daughter: my job is about helping people build better lives together.

What impact of Interreg (on a territory or a community) has impressed you the most?

Seeing communities become confident and empowered enough to challenge injustice and irrational decisions in public governance. For me, that is when cooperation becomes something much bigger than a funded project.

What does your job involve day-to-day? In this sense, what’s harder than people think?

Finding win-win solutions in an administrative environment that is not always designed to make them possible.

In such a demanding role, what is the one hobby or ritual that keeps you grounded?

A healthy dose of irony, and a little time when nobody expects me to solve anything.

If you could have dinner with any founding figure of the EU, who would it be and what would you ask them about today’s Europe?

I admire Simone Veil and would ask whether she would recognise today's EU as the Europe she dreamed of, or whether she would feel that we have become too complex and too distant from the ideals on which the EU was founded.

What is the one personal contribution you want to be remembered for in the European world?

I invested a great deal of myself in empowering ordinary people to shape the future of the places where they live and work.