EU Seeks Results From Bulgaria on Corruption

While praising Bulgaria's new reforms strategies, the European Commission has complained of a lack of results in delivering justice and halting corruption and organized crime in its annual country report issued under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, CVM.

The Commission announced the ninth annual reports on Bulgaria and Romania issued under the monitoring mechanism on the rule of law in Brussels on Wednesday.

The year 2016 "must be the year when Bulgarians feel progress on the ground. Seeing real results in tackling high level corruption and organized crime cases remains Bulgaria's biggest challenge," the Commission's Vice-President, Frans Timmermans, commented.

The CVM was launched on January 1, 2007, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU. Since then, the Commission has been critical of Bulgaria's progress in bringing justice and rule of law in line with EU standards

"The Bulgarian government should keep its head high and talk about its fight against corruption in contraband," Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Wednesday in response to the report. According to him, the results in the field are obvious.

Among the report's key recommendations is the creation of a new unified anti-corruption authority and independent analysis of the work of the state prosecution.

EU experts have criticized the rejection of the new anti-corruption draft law by the Bulgarian Assembly earlier in 2015.

In December, Bulgaria amended its constitution, however, which is viewed as a step towards reform of the Supreme Judicial Council, which provides overall direction for the judicial system.

Still, the European Commission noted that the voted constitutional amendments include significant differences from the text as originally...