The two public shootings in Sofia were "more than a statistic", but such murders continued happening in Bulgaria and their perpetrators were never caught, European Commission (EC) spokesman Mark Gray said on April 8, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

Georgi Stoev, the author of several books on organised crime in the country, was shot shortly before 1pm on April 7 in Sofia, less than 24 hours after Borislav Georgiev, chief executive of the firm Atomenergoremont, which is closely linked to businessman Hristo Kovachki, was shot dead on the stairs of the Lyulin apartment building in which he lived.

Gray re-iterated the message delivered by EC president Jose Manuel Barroso in Sofia last month - Bulgaria needed to urgently step up efforts to fight organised crime.

Barroso's visit came in the middle of the row surrounding the Interior Ministry, in which high-ranking officials have been accused of links to organised crime, with suspicion clouding the name of Interior Minister Roumen Petkov.

At that time, Barroso said that the Commission was getting tired of telling Bulgaria it needed to do more to fight organised crime.

But Brussels is in no hurry to link the two murders, which appear to be contract killings with their trademark shots to the head, to the Interior Ministry row, Dnevnik said, quoting EC sources speaking off the record.