To the excitement related to change of power in Sofia in the past week, one can add that caused by the EC report on reforms in the country in the past decade. The main conclusion of the document is that there was no fundamental change in the fight against corruption at the top levels of power, while corruption at lower levels of the state administration in this country remains a serious problem, too.

The report does not mention the intention of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that monitoring should be terminated by 2019, but reads that it would end when all conditions were met. This hints at the fact that monitoring on Bulgaria will not be terminated soon and this has raised concerns that Bulgaria will hold the rotational EU presidency in the first half of 2018 as a monitored Member State, which would be the first such case in the EU.

The National Assembly has paid much attention to the report but most parties that took part in the debates used them for per-election purposes. GERB focused on the positive sides of the report, while BSP said that failure in efforts to eliminate monitoring was a failure of GERB. MRF took an intermediate position saying that the EC was still reporting progress in implementing the recommendations of previous reports and called for lifting the monitoring mechanism. Polls have shown, however, that attitudes of the electorate are different from those in parties. A Eurobarometer survey has shown that 72 per cent of Bulgarians prefer EC monitoring on Bulgaria to continue, as they, just like the EC, believe this country has serious problems with corruption, organized crime and inefficient judicial system. Whether the 17 recommendations of the EC report on Bulgaria will be implemented by the beginning of its EU presidency in January 2018, will become clear in the future. Some say this is possible, while others reject such a possibility.

As for concerns that in the first half of next year Bulgaria would hold the EU presidency and be a monitored member at the same time, the first vice-president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans said that this would not be a problem because the monitoring system was not a punishment but a mechanism for cooperation between Member States.

English: Al. Markov