Brussels, 17/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Bulgarian prime minister, Boiko Borissov, has been linked by the Bulgarian press to an affair involving telephone tapping. The Euractiv.com website indicated that this affair suggests that the prime minister sought to protect a purportedly unscrupulous businessman suspected of being involved in number of customs inspections. These recordings also allege that financial “donations” from this the businessman working in the beer sector had been made to Borissov's political party, so that he could avoid any customs inspections. Borissov prescribed these allegations as “manipulation”. In 2007, the European Commission imposed the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM) on Romania and Bulgaria in an effort to ensure the two countries made progress in fighting corruption and introducing legal reforms. On Monday 17 January, the Commission chose not to comment on these “allegations” and would only say that at this stage, this was a question of “domestic policy”. Nonetheless, as part of the CVM, a Commission spokesperson, Mark Gray, explained that it had requested “verification” from Bulgaria, particularly with regard to whether the telephone tapping was “legal or not”. (S.P./transl.fl)