July 13 (SeeNews) - The European Commission (EC) on Wednesday said it made six country-specific recommendations to Bulgaria, including adopting mechanisms to appoint Supreme Judicial Council members in line with European standards and ensuring adequate institutional reforms to improve the investigation and prosecution of high-level corruption cases.
The recommendations were made in addition to Bulgaria's existing commitments under the national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) relating to certain aspects of the justice system and the anti-corruption framework as well as the country's remaining commitments under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), the EC said in a statement outlining the outcome of its 2022 Rule of Law report on Bulgaria.
"There are increasing concerns related to the functioning of the Supreme Judicial Council and the need to address its composition is all the more important. Concerns related to the Inspectorate to the Supreme Judicial Council remain. The absence of regular competition for the promotion of magistrates, combined with an extensive use of secondments, risks to affect the independence of magistrates," the EC said.
In this respect, the EU executive body noted the outgoing coalition government's efforts to set up an effective mechanism for the accountability and criminal liability of Bulgaria's Prosecutor General and deputies, as well as for implementing judicial review of prosecutor decisions not to open an investigation.
With respect to the actions of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the EC deplored the lack of a solid track-record of final convictions in high-level cases of corruption. The effectiveness of reform of the ACC itself remains to be assessed as the decision to split it into two separate bodies was made public as recently as June.
The report also raised the issue of adequate regulation of lobbying and the protection of whistleblowers.
A positive assessment was given to legislative process improvements resulting from a new requirement that all bills should be submitted to parliament together with reasons and a preliminary impact assessment.
This is the Commission's third Rule of Law report on Bulgaria under the CVM. The report is published annually with recommendations made to all 27 member states.