It took Bulgaria the best part of this millennium to escape the tag of a "country of pirates," but the law enforcement's crackdowns have finally yielded their results.

I guess that means that there's virtually nobody left to download movies, music or software from torrent sites or peer-to-peer networks. It must be true because the US trade department says so.

Yet another notch on the current government's bedpost, and one less issue for Boyko Borisov to grumble about, incidentally.

Of course a line in a report written in Washington will not erase Slaveykov square from existence, nor the hundreds, if not thousands of people who download torrents from torrent trackers hosted outside Bulgaria, and it will not put an end to local area network servers.

All those will remain, despite the huge fuss raised by the dreaded GDBOP, the organised crime police, and the large crowds who protested against their crackdowns.

Hopefully this latest development will bring some peace to the thousands of users, hidden in their basements and downloading copyrighted material, the likes of whom GDBOP sees in every shadow.

But while I am in no way complaining about the situation, I can't help but think how easy it is to appear as doing something by tackling a couple of symptoms, without actually tackling the underlying problems.

Recent Bulgarian governments have taken the ability to do so to an art form, regardless whether the issue is economic policies, the fight against corruption or judiciary reform.

And then proudly boast about their "achievements".

Actually, I'm quite surprised that Rumen Petkov, the interior minister, or anyone else for that matter, has so far failed to acknowledge this momentous achievement, but I guess even politicians need their breaks.

I'll give them a day or two to clear their heads after Labour Day.

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