Draft EC Report Expected in Bulgaria Sunday Evening

The draft of the European Commission's Monitoring Report on Bulgaria's Justice System and Internal Affairs under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism is expected to arrive in Bulgaria Sunday evening.

The news was reported by the Bulgarian Trud (Labor) daily, citing their own sources.

All EU Commissioners are to receive the draft Sunday evening as well.

Bulgaria's cabinet Borisov of the center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, will have just one day – Monday to examine the text and make objections, the Bulgarian National Radio, BNR, explained. The objections can pertain only to the technical part, not the so-called political document.

Changes in it can be made only during debates at a summit of the EU Commissioners, scheduled for Wednesday, just hours before the public release of the report.

The same diplomatic sources have reiterated before Trud that the possibility to separate the monitoring of Bulgaria and Romania over the political crisis in the northern neighbor has been on the table all the way until Saturday, but the most likely outcome is that the Status Quo will remain.

During the week Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, on his own request, held in Brussels emergency talks with the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, which many observers saw as a desperate last attempt to "soften some of the strongest criticism."

The leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, and the Party of European Socialists, PES, Sergey Stanishev, forecasted that the European Commission will retain the monitoring mechanism on Bulgaria, and called it a "failure of GERB."

Western media published harsh comments on Bulgaria and Romania in the eve of the release of the reports. AFP wrote the EU is now paying the bill of pressing ahead with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, where, along with Hungary, democracy is under fire.

Europe is facing a nightmare because of the attacks on democracy and rule of law in Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, Austrian Die Presse stressed.