Bulgaria has established “a strong reform momentum” in judicial reforms and combat against corruption and organized crime, still too few cases are concluded in court, says the report of the European Commission, published on Tuesday.

The commission is still monitoring the progress Bulgaria is making in justice and home affairs through the so-called Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM).

The report was approved by the college of commissioners Tuesday morning and was presented later in the day.

The conclusions in the latest, fourth, annual report the commission has produced under the mechanism say there is a need for improvements of the professional practice within the police, prosecution and courts.

“Success will require a sustained commitment by Bulgaria, the Commission and other Member States,” says the final text of the report.

For the first time, special attention has been paid to the public procurement procedures, which suffer conflicts of interest, according to the EC.

The report recommends that Bulgarian authorities strengthen the training efforts for officials of the competent authorities in order to identify and prevent conflict of interest and other important irregularities in public procurement.

It praises the legal procedures against former MPs as a step towards the fight against corruption on higher levels.

"Bulgaria has stepped up its efforts to fight against high-level corruption. Since July 2009, a number of indictments were registered against two Members of Parliament, three former ministers, three former deputy ministers and, for the first time also against an acting minister. In addition, a number of high-level officials and mayors were also indicted for high-level corruption," the report says.

The report points out that Bulgaria has strengthened the capacity of the joint team dealing with EU fraud and cites the sentence for imprisonment of Mario Nikolov in an emblematic case regarding fraud with EU funds and money laundering. The European Commission says that despite the sentence of 10 years imprisonment for the defendant, the court did not impose detention orders.

The Commission makes it clear that it will continue to monitor the activities of Bulgaria’s Commission for the establishment of property acquired through criminal activity (CEPACA).

The European Commission report on Romania is much more critical.

“While Bulgaria has embraced reform efforts and achieved important results Romania has lost momentum with the report showing important shortcomings in its efforts to achieve progress,” the European Commission said in a press release, published along with the reports.

The report on Bulgaria consists of two parts – political conclusions and suggestions and a detailed technical analysis of the work that has been done and the rest of the steps for the reform.

FULL TEXT of the EC report on Bulgaria READ HERE

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