Eurasia Press & News
The Bulgarian government has asked EU member states to send “experienced” diplomats to hold “key positions” in the administration in order to help boost reforms in the country.
But the unusual proposal has been rebuffed by European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, who said the Bulgarians should carry out the reforms themselves.
“The reforms in Bulgaria, in the Bulgarian administration, must be carried out by the Bulgarians themselves. Nothing can substitute your own efforts,” Mr Barroso told Bulgarian daily Dnevnik in the margins of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday (20 March).
“We co-operate with you, we have increased the co-operation, but there is no way that we substitute the efforts that depend on the government, the administrations, and all levels of the Bulgarian state,” he added.
The Bulgarian government’s proposal for “specific co-operation schemes” with other EU states was prepared in February by socialist prime minister Sergei Stanishev’s advisory board, notably his European affairs advisor Maria Markes-Pinto.
“In order to better and fully achieve [needed reforms] the government of Bulgaria wishes to invite those member states that possess assessed and proven knowledge and experience in the fields pointed out and are ready to share it with the Bulgarian Institutions and Administrative structures responsible for the implementation of these reforms,” the letter – seen by EUobserver – reads.
It pointed to five specific areas that need outside help – boosting the competitiveness of the business environment, implementing and monitoring legislation that regulates public procurement and conflict of interest, reform of the judiciary, management of EU funds, and training people in EU law.
Three “co-operation schemes” are foreseen, including setting up “concrete, well-targeted assistance missions from different member states,” as well as appointing European experts to key positions within the Bulgarian administration.
“Key directive or management positions in the Central administration as well as in the depending Agencies or bodies …should be occupied by the required highly qualified professionals from any of the member states, included Bulgaria, following open recruitment and selection procedures,” says the proposal.
The Bulgarian proposal has met with a cool reception beyond Brussels as well.
Bulgarian weekly Kapital reports that most EU diplomats consider an oversight mechanism already in place for the country as enough.
The Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) was set up when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU, on 1 January 2007, to monitor reforms in areas such as justice and home affairs, seen as a field where the two countries perform particularly badly.
“The member states have already tasked the European Commission with monitoring the situation, because this is how Europe works. The commission has the bureaucratic capacity, is not dependant on political messages and is handling its task very well,” a senior diplomat told the paper.
For his part, France’s ambassador to Bulgaria, Etienne de Poncins, said that France backs the idea “in principle,” but underlined that “the political will must come from the Bulgarian government, parliament and institutions.”
“We cannot replace the Bulgarian authorities in the job they have to do.”
Besides the institutional imbroglio, the issue of who would pay the European experts’ salaries is another question mark over the Bulgarian idea, with state administration employees in Bulgaria learning much less than most of their EU counterparts.
The Bulgarian government’s initiative comes just a few months ahead of the general elections in the country, expected to take place in early summer.
It is seen by some as a last-ditch attempt by the increasingly unpopular current coalition government to get some Brussels’ praise before the elections.
The government is already blamed for irreversibly losing €220 million of pre-accession EU funding last year over its persistent failure to tackle corruption, with millions more of EU money still frozen and at risk, unless Sofia delivers some results.
Last November, the commission judged that most of the measures it has taken so far “are only a promise for future action,” and in an interim report in February it called for “convincing and tangible results” from Sofia.
But regardless of the country’s shortcomings, the Bulgarian approach sets a bad precedent, Bulgarian media comment.
“Letting the Europeans come because we can’t make it on our own is a helpless position,” Kapital wrote last week.
