The European Commission (EC) has rejected a request by Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev to send European officials and diplomats to help the state administration.

In a letter, obtained by Dnevnik, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told Stanishev that the new institutional mechanisms the Bulgarian PM demanded were improper for an European Union member state.

According to Barroso, the other countries in the bloc were experiencing an "assistance fatigue" and the Bulgarian Government should first show concrete and visible results to motivate its partners to send in more experts and new funding.

Barroso said Brussels was ready to continue to help Bulgaria but believed that this did not require the creation of the structures proposed by Stanishev a month ago. Instead, he said that Bulgaria should enhance current technical monitoring and cooperation with more extensive political dialogue and setting results-oriented goals within the monitoring mechanism that has been in place ever since Bulgaria's EU accession. Barroso pointed out that the stance was shared by other member states as well.

The Cabinet told Dnevnik that it would would not abandon the idea to appoint foreign experts to "problematic" administrative units, a proposal they claim has been warmly welcomed by both the member states and the Commission.

The demand for a direct participation of European experts in the government of Bulgaria put forward by Stanishev’s European council sparked opposition in Brussels and The Economist magazine labelled it "new colonialism". The magazine quoted European diplomats who said that it was a political stunt of the Bulgarian Government ahead of general elections in summer.

The letter reiterated an opinion Barroso voiced at his meeting with Stanishev on March 5 in Brussels, when the Bulgarian PM made his proposal for the first time. It seems Barroso had to present the Commission’s stance in writing, with Stanishev repeatedly saying after the conversation that the EC president embraced the proposal.

In his letter, Barroso outlined Brussels’ expectations ahead of the next monitoring mechanism report, due in the summer. Bulgaria should draw up an effective programme to arrest suspects in corruption and organised crime investigations and streamline the judicial process. It should also reform the penal code and improve the performance of the Supreme Judicial Council.

Stanishev's European issues advisor, Maria Pinto, who is the author of the proposal, said the requests made to the member states differed from those made to the European Commission. Stanishev asked Siim Kallas, the EC vice-president and the commissioner for administration affairs, audit and anti-fraud, for cooperation in three areas – appointing experts to advise the handling EU funds, training of Bulgarian administrators by their colleagues in Brussels and internships with the European Commission for Bulgarian experts to acquire EU funding management practices. Pinto said had Kallas thrown his support behind all ideas.

Source: Dnevnik