Bulgaria has been an EU member-state for 10 years now. What does the country look like today? We are still the poorest and most corrupt state and the benefits of this membership still cannot be felt by everyone, despite the high level of trust towards the EU institutions, demonstrated by the Bulgarians. The Bulgaria’s 10 Years within EU – Benefits and Challenges report, prepared by the Centre for Liberal Strategies gave us a reason to think about these benefits. In general, they can be divided in two – political and economic ones. The economic benefits are related to the export towards the EU as part of this country’s market activity. It has been growing in a significant manner. Besides that the decade of membership allowed us to reach 20% growth of purchasing power and thanks to the EU monitoring we maintain a budget deficit of no more than 3%. Expert in political science Daniel Smilov gives us more details on the political benefits:

“The main conclusion, concerning the political effects of Bulgaria’s EU membership can be formulated like that: a strong and clear stabilization effect. However, next comes the challenge that we are to face from now on. The EU has kept Bulgaria stable so far. It has guaranteed the political processes and their common direction. We all know that reforms are going on within the EU and that there are different options about its future. In this sense Bulgaria shouldn’t use the union as an importer of stability only, but should become an active participant in its strengthening and the strengthening of certain policies.”

It is true that Bulgaria has managed to overcome several heavy crises over the past decade with the EU support. The recession was one of them and the state succeeded in going through it with no serious shakes. The bankruptcy of the Corporate Commercial Bank was a purely domestic crisis, but thanks to our EU membership failed to trigger the domino effect, ruining the rest of the banking institutions here. Despite the constant appeals of the EU reports for a more effective system of justice and more transparent and quicker court trials this is still not happening. Economy expert Georgi Ganev says that the solving of the problems inside the system of justice is what is necessary for the solving of the other social issues and inequalities. According to Mr. Smilov:

“If we have to look for an area with no visibly positive development over the EU membership decade, this is the media sphere, of course. We witness worsening of the media environment. Different polls show that Bulgaria has been collapsing to positions which are not typical for European countries. The Bulgarian governments have taken measures for media ownership transparency and for coping with the existing monopolies, but the common assessment of these measures points at their insufficiency.”

Media freedom should be presented in the report, despite its collateral connection to the EU membership, since the subject attracts huge public interest and the global financial crisis had its visible effect on the sector. Media, facing financial troubles are forced to look for a buyer whose interests need to be served to and the lack of foreign ownership, combined with the monopolization of the distribution network makes the survival of an independent edition almost impossible. Now a bit about the positive sides of the report: the full dropping of roaming fees in June, the defense of patients and users’ rights and also the higher environmental criteria that have contributed to many improvements in this country.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev