The next European Commission report on Bulgaria’s efforts to make progress in justice and home affairs under the EC’s Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) would be criticial, but not scathing, and would not recommend the imposition of a safeguard clause, European Affairs Minister Gergana Passi said on June 18 2009.
 
Passi was outlining her expectations for the report, which is expected to be released some time after Bulgaria’s national parliamentary elections on July 5 but before the end of September.
 
When Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union on January 1 2007, both were subjected to a CVM because of their respective inadequacies in meeting standards required by the bloc on justice and home affairs.
 
The CVM is due to come to an end in 2009, and the EU will have to decide whether to continue it, continue with an adapted version or, in the event of sufficient progress – end it. The 2007 and 2008 reports sharply criticised Bulgaria’s shortcomings, while acknowledging progress in some areas.
 
Passi told the June 18 news conference that she did not rule out a debate on whether safeguard clauses should be imposed, but did not expect that such a clause actually would be.
 
She said that after the report by the EC, being compiled after a mission to Bulgaria has now concluded its latest visit, there would be an EC report on the absorption by Bulgaria of EU funds. This is a subject that has been the subject of much trouble between Brussels and Bulgaria, with Brussels blocking huge sums in funding in 2008 because of questionable practices, mismanagement and allegations of abuse.
 
On June 17, Bulgarian media reports said that The Netherlands European affairs minister Frans Timmermans had written to European Commission Vice President Jacques Barrot saying that safeguard clauses should be imposed against Bulgaria and Romania because of the inadequacies in justice and home affairs that would be confirmed by the EC report.
 
Should a safeguard clause be imposed, the member state subjected to it would be excluded from legal and police co-operation on criminal matters. Safeguard clauses may be imposed for up to three years after EU accession.
 
On June 18, mass-circulation daily Trud quoted a diplomatic source in Brussels, speaking on condition of anonymity, who said that the EC would not impose a safeguard clause against Bulgaria.