Tsvetan Tsvetanov, now in office as Boiko Borissov’s Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, has publicly reinforced the message that every individual minister in the new Cabinet is expected to deliver – or their resignations, already signed and held for safekeeping – will be accepted.

Tsvetanov is a long-time associate of Borissov and one of his most deeply-trusted lieutenants. They share an Interior Ministry background and their path to power has been a three-legged race.

But in his prior career, Borissov has shown no qualms about axing those who fail to meet expectations, and it may be that if his pledges against organised crime and corruption are not fulfilled, Tsvetanov himself may not be exempt from the chop.

Nevertheless, a major factor in favour of Tsvetanov getting somewhere in his tasks is that same very close association with Borissov, which in combination with his senior place in the Cabinet, could make Tsvetanov among the most powerful interior ministers in recent times in Bulgaria – and one that any officers less than keen on achieving successes aware that Tsvetanov should not be trifled with.

Through a succession of official ceremonies in Parliament and at the Cabinet office, and in media interviews, when his Cabinet took office on July 27, Borissov spelled out that one of his administration’s top priorities would be fighting organised crime and corruption.

Borissov said that the structures charged with combating organised crime, theft of European Union funds and corruption should start working, because if they did not, he would "take matters in my own hands".

Less than a week before Borissov’s Cabinet was sworn in, the latest European Commission report on Bulgaria’s progress in fighting organised crime and corruption was released.

The report said Bulgaria had achieved progress in the judiciary, fighting corruption and organised crime, but lacked political will and a strategy, and change had been slow in coming.

The report contained 21 recommendations and demands that Bulgaria take concrete actions to fight corruption and organised crime.

Reacting to the report, Tsvetanov told Bulgarian National Radio that he endorsed the EC’s suggestion to set up an institution to fight high-level corruption. He said that the recommendations from Brussels were "feasible" and the new government could be expected to show much better results than its predecessor.

While he signalled on several occasions that his ministry would be expected to work on crime-fighting moves from day one, Tsvetanov has also pledged to consult his ministry’s senior officers on the way ahead.
Tsvetanov, who was given a warm reception at Interior Ministry headquarters when he arrived to take office on July 27 – and naturally looked very much at home there, probably in part because of his 1998 to 2005 service at the ministry – has vowed to clear up the image of the ministry and its partner, the State Agency for National Security (SANS), in the eyes of Bulgaria’s European Union partners.

He has sharply criticised the amendments to the Penal Code and the Penal Procedure Code inherited from the now-defunct Stanishev administration, saying that new amendments would be forthcoming to make the codes work better, and like his boss, Tsvetanov has a changed vision of the role of SANS.

In an interview published a day after taking office, Borissov indicated that SANS should become much more of an intelligence and information-gathering agency, working in close partnership with prosecutors. SANS should have a lower profile, Borissov said, referring to his admiration for the places and profiles of Western intelligence-gathering agencies.
Further, it is not as if Tsvetanov simply would be able to deploy a highly-motivated, highly skilled set of police officers.

As is obvious from the somewhat bizarre protests by police in the past year – "spontaneous" public gatherings to smoke and to drink mineral water, respectively, serious attention is needed to questions of pay and morale. Political foes hinted darkly that Borissov’s party GERB had fomented the police protests, a charge rejected as a lie by Borissov and GERB, but it is inevitable that the police themselves will have high expectations of Borissov and Tsvetanov, whom they view as, so to speak, two of their own.

Media speculation has suggested that the National Service for Organised Crime will be restored to tight control by Interior Ministry leadership.

And further, it is not just that Tsvetanov will have to revamp his own ministry, but also foster effective liaison with other institutions, from the Finance Ministry to the National Revenue Agency, customs service, and others.

Tsvetanov has already indicated that he would work for the introduction of a single information system between law enforcement and courts, and said that this should be one of the first steps to be implemented. This would be just one move forward from the complaint that his boss made when Borissov was chief secretary of the Interior Ministry – that "we catch them and the courts let them go".