The European Commission criticised Bulgaria and Rom-ania yesterday for insufficient efforts to root out corruption but defended their inclusion in the European Union before they had seriously tackled their problems.
The Commission announ-ced the suspension of €486m ($763m, £382m) in EU funds to Bulgaria but emphasised this money had not yet been paid and all of it would be released if Bulgaria's authorities introduced proper financial controls on its use.
Bulgaria and Romania are the 27-nation bloc's poorest members, with per capita gross domestic product about one-third of the EU average.
They were welcomed into the Union 18 months ago in spite of concerns among older member-states about high-level corruption, organised crime and the lack of judicial reform.
Rejecting the view that the EU had admitted Bulgaria and Romania too soon, a spokesman for José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, said: "It was every-body's conviction at the time that the best way forward was to address these issues by means of EU membership."
He said the Commission's message to the two Black Sea neighbours was "on the one hand, vigilance, and on the other hand, encouragement" to help them improve their anti-corruption efforts.
The strong language on Bulgaria and Romania was contained in two reports, which nonetheless made clear the Commission was not threatening to suspend funds earmarked for the EU's 2007-13 budget cycle. Romania is due to receive €32bn and Bulgaria €11bn.
Neither is the Commission preparing to invoke a clause in their EU accession treaties, under which it could lift the obligation on other member states to recognise Bulgarian and Romanian court decisions.
EU diplomats said the Commission's decision to talk tough and act more softly reflected the nearimpossibility of taking severe steps against countries once they had joined the EU, which thought of itself as a "family" of like-minded states.
The report on Romania was more positively worded than that on Bulgaria, commenting: "Romania has started to move in the right direction. The new institutions and processes need time to prove their effectiveness and should be allowed to continue on a steady course."
However, it expressed concern about the attitude of Romanian politicians, saying: "A broad-based political consensus behind the re-forms is lacking, as is the unequivocal will across all political parties to root out high-level corruption.
"No real progress has been made in 10 key cases involving former ministers. This is partly due to parliament having blocked the investigations and partly to dismissal of the cases by the High Court of Cassation and Justice [Romania's supreme court], which overturned previous decisions."
On Bulgaria, the Commission said: "High-level corruption remains a serious problem. It has not yet been effectively tackled by the administration and the judiciary. The Bulgarian authorities have not applied the law in such a way to reduce corruption in state institutions." The €486m represents mainly money allocated to Bulgaria before it joined the bloc in agriculture, infrastructure and technical assistance programmes.
Diana Kovatcheva, executive director of the Bulgarian arm of Transparency International, the anticorruption watchdog, said: "Immediate steps need to be taken to stop the misuse of EU funds and to investigate corruption-related crimes."
What they said
"I accept this report and its conclusions and recommendations as a challenge to do more work to complete the reforms this government has started" Sergei Stanishev, Bulgarian prime minister "The greatest liability in Romania is that the fight against corruption has become a political instrument in the power struggle amongst parties" Victor Alistar, executive director of Transparency International Romania "These reports are a reality check - they show that both the Bulgarian and Romanian governments need to step up their efforts on judicial reform, corruption and in the case of Bulgaria organised crime . . The Commission has also sent a strong signal today that EU funds must be managed properly" José Manuel Barroso, Commission president
