Bulgaria and Romania criticised for corruption levels

04.02.2008 - 09:16 CET | By Elitsa Vucheva
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Commission will today (4 February) criticise Bulgaria and Romania for their lacklustre fight against corruption and crime – but will stop short of calling for sanctions against the countries.

The two interim documents on Sofia and Bucharest's progress in the field of justice and home affairs set to be adopted today – and seen by EUobserver – highlight the specific areas where the commission thinks the countries are lagging behind.


Both Romania and Bulgaria have failed to present "convincing results" in the fight against high-level corruption, while Bulgaria needs to improve its handling of organised crime.

"The commission's analysis of a sample of high-profile cases [of organised crime] registered shows that only one case has been finalised since 2000 and half of the cases are still at the investigation stage," according to the Bulgarian document.

Sofia should also strengthen "actions to fight corruption within local government and vulnerable sectors such as healthcare and education," the commission concludes.

But despite the criticism and regardless of the fact that it came to similar conclusions in its first monitoring reports issued in June 2007, Brussels has steered away from the sanctions option.

The aim of the interim reports is primarily to serve as a "factual assessment of the situation" before the annual overall progress reports planned for July, an EU source said on Friday (1 February), underlining "we do not deal with safeguard clauses now."

According to the countries' accession treaties – documents outlining the terms of their membership – if Sofia and Bucharest fall short of EU standards in certain areas, such as the economy, the internal market, and justice and home affairs, the EU can decide to impose certain safeguard measures.

euobserver.com