Bulgaria's Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva admitted Friday that the country had made no tangible progress in the combating corruption and organized crime.

Tacheva made this statement after her meeting with the Bulgarian Members of the European Parliament to discuss country's justice reforms before the upcoming monitoring report of the European Commission.

"We expect that the EU Report would be realistic and objective, and would account for our progress. I cannot say that we have outright failures. But I can confirm, however, that there are spheres in which we haven't made actual progress such as the fight against corruption and organized crime," the Minister said.

In her words, the main challenge was to demonstrate to Bulgaria's EU partners and to the Bulgarian society as well that the country had a functioning justice system, which could investigate and complete cases within reasonable terms.

Tacheva also explained that with the newly crafted Penal Procedure Code the country had no more legislative obstacles in the justice field, and that any problems would come from the people applying the laws on the ground.

Bulgaria has repeated been criticized by EU institutions for its failure to tackle corruption and organized crime. The EC monitoring report is expected on July 23.

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