The European Commission decided on Wednesday to formally suspend European Union (EU) funding for Bulgaria because of irregularities in fund management and corruption.
The commission, which had provisionally suspended EU funding in the last six months, decided to formalize the suspension on Wednesday and to withdraw the accreditation of two Bulgarian agencies handling EU aid.
Bulgaria's fight against corruption and organized crime has not been effective owing to judicial problems, said EU chief spokesman Johannes Laitenberger.
"While significant work has started to address these problems, the commission is not yet sufficiently reassured to ease the suspensions. Today the commission has therefore formally taken the decision to withdraw the accreditation for two government agencies in charge of managing the so-called pre-accession funds," said the spokesman.
He said, however, the commission is prepared to reverse the decision as soon as Bulgaria has taken the necessary corrective measures to improve financial management and tighten control systems.
The frozen funds, which amount to almost half a billion euros, were money given to Bulgaria to help it prepare its EU membership. The commission said it has also taken a formal decision to suspend infrastructure funding.
Bulgaria, which joined the EU on Jan. 1, 2007 together with Romania, is under EU scrutiny. The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, published a report on Wednesday on Bulgaria's management of EU funds.
A separate report on the two countries' progress in judicial reform and fight against corruption, points out that much more needs to be done by both countries to fight high-level corruption and in Bulgaria on organized crime.
The report sees the situation in Romania as a mixed picture. The fundamental elements of a functioning system are in place. But the foundation is still fragile and decisions on high-level corruption are highly politicized, says the report.
On Bulgaria, the reports says reform of the judiciary and law enforcement structures is necessary and long overdue.
Bulgaria has taken steps in the right direction over the last six months with the setting up of the State Agency for National Security and the decision to reform the Ministry of Interior. The test of progress will now be whether these measures can deliver concrete results by investigating, prosecuting and judging cases of high-level corruption and organized crime, says the report.
"The fight against high-level corruption and organized crime is not producing enough results. While there has been movement on a few cases, many alleged cases go unpunished," commented Laitenberger.
Source:Xinhua
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