Asked about Bulgaria’s recent record on combating high-level corruption and organised crime, Mincho Spassov, head of the Bulgarian parliament’s Internal Order and Security Commission, sounds a pessimistic note. “The judicial system as a whole has failed to find sufficient courage to challenge either high-level crime or corruption within its own ranks,” he says.

Little progress seems to have been made since last July when the European Commission froze hundreds of millions of euros in aid to Bulgaria because of the government’s failure to crack down on corrupt politicians and crime bosses.