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© Julia Lazarova
“You do not want and do not want to implement the recommendations of the Venice Commission for effective control over the chief prosecutor,” said the EC with diplomatic flair, according to Maria Spirova.
The first Annual Report on the rule of law in the European Union, one of the main initiatives of the European Commission, was announced today and reiterated old criticisms of the problem of corruption in Bulgaria and the lack of control over the General Prosecutor’s Office. The document has separate chapters for each of the 27 member states and is part of the general European rule of law mechanism announced by Commission President von der Leyen. Its purpose is to act as a preventive tool, monitoring significant processes, both positive and negative, in order to have enough information and stimulate discussion and prevention of problems with the rule of law and democracy.
Dnevnik collected the first reactions to the report without pretending to be exhaustive.
Polina Paunova, journalist:
An uncontrolled attorney general, to whom all prosecutors and investigators are de facto subordinate. Low confidence in anti-corruption institutions, despite loud actions related to high-level corruption. Anxiety state of the media environment – opaque property; state funding without clear criteria, owned by the political media.
This is Bulgaria in Europe. However, everything is fine. And the European Commissioners, as they do not like and find flaws – walk.
Ivo Indjov, expert in political communication:
The European Commission notes that the lack of results in the fight against corruption is the main reason for the summer protests in Bulgaria in 2020.
Vladislav Panev, city councilor, co-chair of the Green Movement:
Today’s report on Bulgaria from the European Commission will be found in many places and is just as negative as the previous ones. The fact that Brussels has said the same thing in one way or another does not affect people’s lives or the business environment. Only officials understand this, and the government uses an expression to brag about how good the report is, and vice versa.
It’s good to think about why things are getting worse on various issues since 2007. Which corrodes our potential as a state. And so it is not only in Bulgaria, but practically throughout Central Europe.
Do they realize in Brussels that they are financing corruption and the oligarchy? And that in this way they instill anti-European sentiments even in people who generally sympathize with the idea of a continent without borders. That Europe is practically lagging behind the rest of the world, even on the issues it prioritizes?
There are basic questions that, if left unanswered, will read negative reports for another 100 years. And that? A problem must be solved first.
Maria Spirova, editor of a London law publishing house, candidate for MEP for “Yes, Bulgaria!”, On Facebook:
Here is the summary for Bulgaria of today’s report on the rule of law of the European Commission. Highlights (translated from polite Brussels):
– It does not want and does not want to implement the recommendations of the Venice Commission for an effective control over the Attorney General.
– Vanity with some reforms, but there are no significant convictions for corruption.
– You do not react to attacks against the court, but you try to make corrections to subordinate it even more.
– Your society does not trust because it does not see results of its supposed fight against corruption – hence the protests of the summer of 2020.
– Lobbying is rampant and the legislative process is unpredictable and not transparent.
– Media pluralism is in crisis: CEM does not work, politicians have great influence on the media as owners anyway, and physical and online attacks on journalists continue.
Ivet Dobromirova, journalist:
The news from the EC: The mechanism to monitor the rule of law in Bulgaria remains.
euractiv.bg:
Bulgaria’s monitoring of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism continues to parallel the European Commission’s general monitoring of compliance with the rule of law in the 27 EU countries. This became clear on Wednesday from the words of the EU Commissioner, Vera Yourova, at the presentation of the first report for all countries.
“The monitoring mechanism continues. The work is not done. The message from the streets is very clear: trust in the judiciary is very low,” Yourova said. He added that “the Bulgarian government should take itself very seriously when people express so much mistrust, when they do not believe that the state can do justice. This is very serious.”
Svetoslav Malinov, Head of the Department of Political Sciences of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Sofia “St. Kliment Ohridski” and former MEP of the PPE group, on the Bulgarian National Radio:
Bulgaria looks like a student who has been returned to a correctional session for 10 years. That was our story. For 12 years, we have even received critical reports, less critical reports, slightly positive but still critical reports that we are not dealing with the rule of law, that we have corruption, an unreformed judiciary. Finally a new mechanism arrived.
That is where it all started: this feeling from a large part of European citizens, especially donor countries, that their money is being wasted by governments that do not respect European values. Without European securities, there should be no European money. We finally get to this point.
The European control mechanism has failed, and we, Bulgaria and Romania, have not, which shows that the EU has no mechanism to force a Member State to carry out radical reforms for the benefit of its citizens, not for the benefit of European bureaucrats. Unfortunately, it really took 12 years to see that a country like Bulgaria could not implement such reforms.
The European Union has shown its powerlessness in the face of Member States that violate the rule of law and has now found a new mechanism. I hope it works. This is the great lesson of Bulgaria’s failure and refusal to carry out the reforms that it promised to carry out when the decision was made in 2005 to become a member without being prepared. We did not respond to this gesture by European politicians and, in a sense, we have made an important contribution to the development of the Union, albeit a negative one.
The column “Analysis” presents different points of view, the opinions expressed do not necessarily coincide with the editorial position of “Dnevnik”.
