euro|topics - Corruption in Bulgaria and Romania

Main focus of Friday, July 18, 2008

Corruption in Bulgaria and Romania

Rumania and Bulgaria are the problem children among the new EU member states. Corruption is growing in both countries, and according to the EU Commission the justice reform and fight against organised crime leave much to be desired. The Commission's new progress report, due to be officially published on 23 July 2008 gives little grounds for hope that the situation will improve. Now the two countries are threatened with harsh sanctions.

Revista 22 - Romania

The EU has known about the extent of corruption in Romania for a long time. An experts' report from 2007 that was kept under wraps was recently published by the British economics magazine The Economist. The report, whose findings describe how the struggle against corruption in Romania has suffered setbacks at all levels, was commissioned by the European Commission but never used. The weekly Revista 22 now calls on the Romanians to take responsibility: "Europe does not lack information about the real situation in Rumanian justice and politics, what Europe lacks ... is the courage and the necessary determination to defend the rule of law and to fight corruption. These deficits ... and the lack of institutional instruments to punish states that deviate from European standards allow the Rumanian parliamentarians to use all kinds of tricks to defend their own shameful interests and to make a mockery of the entire EU. ... It is no use waiting for Europe to solve our structural problems, as happened before we joined . ... The Romanians need to take their fate in their own hands and decide whether they need a state based on the rule of law and an efficient policy for fighting corruption." (17/07/2008)

Monitor - Bulgaria

In the past few days Bulgarian media have published an internal report by OLAF, the European Commission's anti-fraud office, on the embezzlement of funds in Bulgaria. It confirms rumours that the election campaign of President Georgi Parvanov was financed by dubious businessmen: "In the year 1999 Hillary Clinton refused to accept a 1,000-dollar cheque from the widow of Bulgarian mafia boss Iliya Pavlov. Parvanov, on the other hand, received 25,000 euros from the notorious businessman Ludmil Stoykov in 2006 and never gave back a single euro, neither when the SAPARD scandal [the freezing of EU subsidies] became public nor when the state prosecution charged Stoykov with money laundering. And even now that the OLAF report has been made public and it says in black and white that Stoykov belongs to an international criminal network, the presidency remains silent." (17/07/2008)

Süddeutsche Zeitung - Germany

The left-wing liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung calls on the EU Commission to punish Romania and Bulgaria. "The fact that combating and punishing corruption in the two countries leaves much to be desired does not apply to 'the Bulgarians' and 'the Romanians'. Insofar as we are talking about the public at large, they do not suffer under this deplorable state of affairs any less than the citizens of other EU countries, whose taxes end up in the wrong channels in the Balkans. It is above all the rulers who carry responsibility. ... Therefore the moment has now come for the EU Commission to act. When it publishes its next progress report in a week's time, it will be high time for consequences to follow. Millions in subsidies to Bulgaria could be frozen, while Romania needs at least to be given a stern public warning. The EU should clearly condemn those in Bucharest who are playing this shabby game, so that the people at least know whom they would be advised to vote out of office at the next parliamentary elections." (18/07/2008)

» To the complete press review of Friday, July 18, 2008

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