Warm CVM Report on Bulgaria Dismays Govt's Critics

Bulgaria has received a far more positive verdict than Romania in this year's European Commission Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, CVM report, published on Tuesday.

All branches of government have welcomed the document, with the State Prosecution writing that it is "very satisfied".

Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said on Wednesday that "the report concludes the [government's] positive results in fighting corruption".

While the Sofia government welcomed the conclusion that the Commission "positively notes Bulgaria's continued efforts and determination to implement [the EC's] recommendations", critics complained that Brussels was ceasing to pressure the country to further reform the judiciary and anti-corruption mechanisms.

"From an expert-political instrument, aimed at encouraging reform, the report has turned into a partisan mechanism," Teodor Slavev, of the Bulgarian Institute for Judicial Initiatives, said, as quoted by Dnevnik.bg.

"The text of the so-called political part of the report, which is the meaningful one, has been simmered down to a sugar-coated listing of many formal 'measures', which totally lack any analysis of whether they are viable or have produced any results", wrote Hristo Ivanov, a former justice minister in Boyko Borissov government from 2014 to 2016 and current leader of the Democratic Bulgaria opposition bloc.

On Tuesday, the vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, said Bulgaria had made steady progress in implementing the final recommendations of the Commission set out in January 2017.

"These reforms are necessary to effectively fight corruption and organised crime. If the current positive trend continues and progress is maintained sustainably and irreversibly, I am...