Criminals in Bulgaria were testing the nerves and the resolve of the European Union anti-fraud office Olaf, the institution's director-general Franz-Hermann Bruener told a July 9 2009 news conference in Brussels, as quoted by Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily.

According to Bruener, the courts were Bulgaria's weakest point in the country's fight against European Union funds fraud. According to Olaf's annual report for 2008, Bulgaria was the EU country with the second most ongoing Olaf investigations into abuse of EU funds, surpassed only by Belgium.

Most of the investigations were on frauds with funds allocated for agriculture. There were 42 Olaf investigations in Bulgaria in 2008, with 23 of them concerned with agriculture funds.

"I don't see much improvement in the work of Bulgarian magistrates in the past few years," Bruener said, adding that this was the reason why none of the cases investigated by Olaf had yielded a court sentence.

"High-profile cases which have led to the freezing of EU funds to Bulgaria are still pending, while the gentlemen involved are walking around freely, when in other countries the court has long ago issued a sentence," he was quoted as saying.

Bruener said magistrates lacked qualification to deal with cases of serious financial fraud and privatisation deals. "If magistrates have ties to political parties then we can't have an independent judiciary because the administration serves the parties," he said.

This could change with the appointment of qualified people to the judiciary, who would act independently and resist political interference.

Bruener had good words for Bulgaria's Prosecutor-General's Office and urged prime minister-to-be Boiko Borissov to continue with the started reforms. "I have known Borissov since 2001 and we've been talking on corruption ever since. We won't hesitate to say publicly if the new government starts failing the started positive reforms," he said.

Bruener also highlighted some of the appointments made by outgoing Minister on EU funds Meglena Plougchieva as steps in the right direction.