With its image in crisis, Bulgaria is in need of quick solutions, after the European Commission published a string of damning reports in July on the country’s preparedness to handle EU funds and deal with organised crime, corruption and judicial reform.

The economic consequences of the EU’s punitive measures are likely to be significant, as much-needed investment in regional development, agriculture and infrastructure dries up. Direct foreign investment is also likely to decline as Bulgaria becomes seen as “problematic”.

At home, the government will suffer politically, as Bulgarians wonder why the country was not able to take more effective advantage of EU membership.

The country has all but exhausted the geopolitical credit it enjoyed as successive governments sided with the West during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, maintained peace while the former Yugoslavia disintegrated in bloodshed and joined the “war on terror” in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York.

As a result of the EU’s July 23 reports, the accreditation of two agencies disbursing PHARE funds has been withdrawn and the pre-accession funding for Bulgaria that remained to be invested practically frozen. The amount involved is worth 825 million euro, though the government has until autumn to salvage some of it if it is seen to take the necessary steps.

Further, given the current level of mismanagement and misuse of funds, the European Commission has indicated that all further EU funding, worth up to 13 billion euro until 2013, might also be suspended.

While the consequences of the current crisis are still being assessed, several things are clear.

First, the EU’s poorest per capita state is going to lose significant funds, owing to its high level of corruption and administrative weakness. These funds were long expected by ordinary Bulgarians as tangible evidence of the advantages being gained by EU accession. Most foreign investors use the assessments of respected international organisations as key references when making their investment decisions. The latest reports makes poor reading in this respect.

Secondly, Bulgaria’s reputation is in crisis, just as the rest of South-east Europe appears stabilised and attracts increasing political and economic attention. In the 1990s, Bulgaria made tremendous efforts to overcome a similar situation, when it was hit by hyperinflation and severe political disruption. Now it appears to be sliding back to where it was more than a decade ago.

Third, Bulgaria and Romania have been regarded as model reforming states in a region still rife with cronyism, economic backwardness and political tension. The recent crisis in relations with the EU has practically ended this claim to regional leadership. The EU assessments portray countries much more part of the Balkans than of Central Europe. This is will be extremely difficult to reverse.  

The current crisis comes at the end of a long series of major political and diplomatic blunders by the three-party coalition in Sofia. These have oscillated between blatant mismanagement of incoming EU funds and arrogant diplomatic behaviour in Brussels, culminating when a former interior minister attempted to lecture the EU on how to measure and tackle corruption.

Months later, Roumen Petkov was forced to resign under severe media, political and EU pressure, for having held meetings with suspected organised crime bosses. But the Prime Minister, Sergei Stanishev, and his team, appear unrepentant, and have insisted the real problems lay only in communication, blaming the EC and the civil service for not handling the process.

In reality, the rigid coalition formula has made cabinet adjustments impossible, leading to the almost complete dismantling of the notion of ministerial responsibility. Under this regime, each personnel change in government must be negotiated and counterbalanced with changes and compensations for the other partners. In practice, this has led to a complete disconnect between results and responsibility.

The authorities went into overdrive in the days before publication of the reports, desperately seeking to soften the language of the leaked drafts. Sofia then committed a further blunder as it launched a veiled attack on the EC, implying its evaluations are not totally objective.

Some Bulgarian MEPs even went as far as to question the legal basis of the EC’s report on EU funding. Scapegoating and “enlargement fatigue” were blamed, as the government went in search of culprits.

The Bulgarian opposition jumped at the opportunity and launched a vote of no-confidence. But this was comfortably seen off by the coalition government, which has no option but to hang on to power until elections are due in the summer of 2009.

The difficulties faced by Bulgaria and Romania in adjusting to the ways and culture of the EU are certainly fuelling the phenomenon of “enlargement fatigue”, already evident as “older” members of the EU club struggle to come to terms with the first real and perceived threats of globalisation.

Domestic politics, and growing fiscal pressures on their own economies all feed into this process. Western publics are only now discovering the societies and politics of the East and South East of Europe and are not thrilled at the sight.

While the benefits of past enlargement are not seriously questioned, a greater number of Westerners than before is starting to perceive the exercise of enlargement as a zero-sum game. There is little doubt that this will mean a prolonged and painful accession process for the next aspirants.

While legal harmonisation with EU law will remain paramount and central, EU accession will be increasingly viewed as a test of cultural and social compatibility, too.

The “West” will want to be reassured that corruption is an aberration rather than an endemic part of the social mechanism in the Balkans. The size, depth and severity of such problems have clearly surprised politicians in the “old” member states.

It used to be the case that the EU negotiated accession with large teams of lawyers. Given the experiences of Bulgaria and Romania, the accession process is now likely to include numerous types of inspectors who will seek to explore just how genuine the changes really are in aspiring member states. Looking at the reaction of most Bulgarians, this is a service that will be much appreciated, locally.

Vladimir Shopov is political scientist based in Sofia and founder of the Institute Sophia Analytica. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication. 

Текстът е публикуван в www.BalkanInsight.com