Brussels, 21/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 21 June, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, asked the new Bulgarian prime minister, Plamen Orecharski, to avoid excessive polarisation of the Bulgarian society and to make the most upstanding choices when it comes to appointing people to the key posts in Bulgarian society, mainly posts linked to combating corruption, an area which has, moreover, just set off a new crisis in that country accompanied by wide-scale demonstrations.
Barroso said at a press briefing with Orecharski that he had made the Commission's concern very clear to the prime minister of Bulgaria. He said they knew that the situation had become too polarised in Bulgaria from a political point of view. The European Commission, he said, has a “duty” to ensure that the political situation does not degenerate and that the rule of law is respected in EU member states. That, he went on, is why he has urged the prime minister to consult widely before making any key appointments, in particular in the field of counter-corruption and the fight against organised crime. Candidates selected, he said, should be selected on merit and meet the highest standards of integrity.
At the head of a technocratic government supported by Socialists, Orecharski, who succeeded the controversial Boiko Borissov, aroused the anger of Bulgarian society by choosing a parliamentarian - a press magnate linked to a major bank - to head the national security agency (DANS). The person in question, Deylan Peevski, is also the leader of the party for the Turkish Muslim minority, MDL. His appointment was all over and completed in just a quarter of an hour, without parliamentary debate. The appointments to anti-corruption posts and to posts in the judiciary are, moreover, what is analysed by the European Commission in its reports on the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM), responsible for observing the country's “democratic health” since 2007, as well as that of Romania. A new report is expected at the end of the year. The Commission is under an obligation to monitor developments in these areas, Barroso said. Both men agreed, moreover, to organise a meeting between Commission officials and Bulgarian officials as part of the CVM, a meeting that will allow discussion on the main priorities to be respected so that Sofia may make progress in the new report's direction, Barroso said. (SP/transl.jl)