Progress in agriculture was registered by European Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel on September 11 after her meeting with Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and the country’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Nihat Kabil.

Boel’s statement came in the light of Bulgaria’s expectations for the European Commission’s (EC) report on the country’s readiness to join the EU on January 1 2007. The report is to be published on September 26 and attention is focused on the possibility of the EC recommending the imposition of safeguard clauses on Bulgaria’s accession. EU rules provide for safeguard clauses to be put in place for three years after a country enters the EU.

Among the clauses that can be invoked is the power of the EU to stop financial aid to a new member country if the funds are not being used in accordance with its rules. The EU could also limit Bulgarian exports within EU borders if the country’s products do not conform to EU norms.

And on legal matters, the EU reserves the right not to recognise judicial decisions made in Bulgaria, if the country fails to pursue crackdowns on corruption.  In its May 2006 monitoring report, the EC listed six areas of serious concern that required urgent action: anti-corruption, judicial system reform, the fight against organised crime and money laundering, agriculture, and strengthening of the financial control for the future use of the Structural and Cohesion Funds.

Corruption and judicial reform have been a sticking point in Bulgaria’s application to join the EU. EU officials have said that these areas might negatively influence the country’s accession. Agriculture, however, might turn out to be Bulgaria’s best achievement.

At a news conference after meeting Stanishev and Kabil, Boel praised Bulgaria’s progress in the agriculture sector, criticising only one area - the project for identification of farmlands. Boel’s praise was like a breath of fresh air to Kabil especially since an EC document, quoted by Reuters, suggested that the EU  might cut down the agriculture subsidies for Bulgaria and Romania for a year if the two countries were not ready to create an acceptable system for control of the funds. This logically raised the question whether Bulgaria would lose these subsidies. Boel’s reaction appeared to be an attempt to calm concerns.

“Even if a safeguard clause is provided in the final monitoring report of the EC on Bulgaria, this does not necessarily mean that it will be activated,” Boel said, leaving open the possibility of a safeguard clause. “Should a safeguard clause be included, it would only be a mechanism to be invoked if some areas failed to be harmonised. The clauses are nothing new,” Boel said.

However, there was some cause for optimism from Boel’s high assessment on some of Bulgaria’s progress. “The Paying Agency and the Integrated Administration and Control System are two key points of the talks on the Agriculture Chapter,” Boel said.

As to veterinary control, Boel said it was of a very high quality. Kabil said that the building, launch, accreditation and certification of the Paying Agency was going according to the schedule agreed with the EC.

“All resources had been rallied so that agriculture would not be the stumbling block to Bulgaria’s EU accession,” Kabil said. A hundred per cent of the imaging, mapping and referencing of the land parcels would be completed by the year’s end, Kabil told journalists. Joining in Kabil’s positive view, Stanishev said that agriculture would not be an obstacle to Bulgaria’s EU membership: “We are all fully mobilised and have the ambition to implement 100 per cent the policies and recommendations agreed with the EU by January 2007”.

Optimism, if nothing else, can be drawn from the Open Society’s (OS) report on Bulgaria’s readiness for full-fledged membership in the EU as of January 1 2007.

The report was presented on September 10 in the presence of Meglena Kouneva, Minister of European Integration.

“The progress achieved by Bulgaria in the six critical areas of preparation for EU membership invites the conclusion that these areas do not pose a significant risk of a postponement of Bulgaria’s EU membership,” OS executive director Georgi Stoichev told journalists.

“The risk of application of safeguard clauses has substantially receded, but the need to press ahead with the reforms would justify the introduction of a period of post-accession monitoring,” the report concluded. Analysis of the adequacy and implementation of the 73 measures planned by the Government in the May-August 2006 period in the six areas of serious concern had shown that 67 of the measures had been adequately planned and 40 had been implemented, while implementation of 22 was in progress.

“This proves the presence of a political will and actions to overcome the problems and invites the conclusion that these areas do not spell a significant risk of a postponement of Bulgaria’s membership in EU from January 1 2007,” the OS said.

However, the report said that the areas of anti-corruption, the fight against organised crime and money laundering, and agriculture still posed a risk of application of safeguard clauses, even though the level of this risk had substantially receded.

“The need to press ahead with the judicial reform with a view to a full-fledged and effective implementation of the measures undertaken is more likely to justify the introduction of a period of post-accession monitoring.”

In the sphere of financial control of the future use of the Structural and Cohesion Funds, the overdue the Extended Decentralised Implementation System (EDIS) accreditation suggests a risk of a delay or even loss of financial resources from the EU funds after accession. EDIS is one of the areas where Bulgaria lags significantly behind Romania, since in July Romania was acknowledged by the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Danuta Hubner, as a country which had completed the EDIS accreditation process for ISPA (Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession). Romania was given the status of a country capable to adequately managing ISPA projects independently.

The mixed signals coming from EU officials are not new when it comes to naming a date for Bulgaria’s entry to the union.

In a September 7  interview with Bulgarian National Radio, European Parliament rapporteur for Bulgaria Geoffrey Van Orden said  that the final decision on Bulgaria’s EU entry date would be made in December not September. The EC report would lack a final entry date recommendation and the EC would probably approve Bulgaria’s on time EU entry, Van Orden said. The final political decision, however, was going to come later. Van Orden did not say whether a safeguard clause would be introduced but said that this was possible.

Meanwhile, more and more Bulgarians have dropped the idea of emigrating to the EU. According to a Gallup International survey commissioned by the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, the number of Bulgarians who want to emigrate long term has halved since 2001.