Unused five-year plan: The Euro ate the judicial reform!

The last five years have passed quickly, and although so much has happened on a global level, in Bulgaria, mostly nothing significant has happened.

The world will remember 2020 with the ongoing coronavirus, the restrictions on social life and free movement. Personally, I would like 2020 to be remembered in Bulgaria as the year of mass protests against the GERB cabinet, which were provoked by the inaction of the executive and judiciary in the face of growing lawlessness, the merging of state and party interests, the inappropriate spending of European funds and the mafiaization of entire industrial sectors. Those summer protests against the GERB cabinet brought a warm and contagious sense of hope – that naive belief that political change is not just possible, but inevitable.

Looking through the prism of 2025 and another GERB cabinet, the smiles from the square in front of the National Assembly already look a bit like footage from a children's play - filled with enthusiasm, but naively detached from reality.

Today, the agenda is the Eurozone. The pseudo-reformers (PP and DB) and the counter-reformers (GERB) are hand in hand towards the monetary union of Europe, at a time when even the strongest economic pillars in the Eurozone - France and Germany - are losing stability, and the periphery of the Eurozone is struggling with high inflation. I do not want to enter into deep economic polemics and arguments here, because EKIP has already written on these topics. Here I want to look outside the Eurozone , because it is not the real priority of the nation, but the thing that distracts us from the true values that we desired in 2020, namely a functioning rule of law and the provision of an acceptable standard of social justice.

The latest reports of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) for the period 2019 - 2023 show that Bulgaria is the leader in the ranking in terms of the number of suspected fraud with EU funds sent for consideration to the European Public Prosecutor's Office (12 cases). The office has also returned 14 cases of suspicion to the Bulgarian judiciary, of which only three have received a court decision - all three were rejected for further review. In the EU, our country is the only one with more than 10 recommendations for national investigation that has not brought charges in any of the cases reported by OLAF, it is clear from the agency's reports.

The Bulgarian legislation and judicial system are so good at evading responsibility that they are perfectly capable of even shaming the investigations of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. The EU’s independent prosecutor’s office reported that in 2023 it opened 203 investigations against Bulgaria for various types of financial fraud, causing total damages estimated at 885 million euros. But unlike investigations in other EU member states, prosecutors have not managed to freeze a single percent of these funds in the banking system. The prosecutor’s efforts have led to the indictment of only four individuals, and as of 2023 there were four cases opened and zero convictions. By comparison, in Romania, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened 260 investigations into damages and fraud for nearly 2 billion euros, and has imposed a seizure of 120 million euros, with 29 indictments, 16 cases and 7 convictions. In Croatia, the cases investigated are for total damages of 277 million euros. euros, leading to 18 indictments, 7 court cases and 4 convictions.

The above facts and the lack of serious consequences for the misuse of European funds clearly show that the authorities and parties in Bulgaria have once again chosen not to emphasize enough the pressing problems in the judicial system and the leakage of billions of levs into hollow schemes.

Looking back at the past five years, it is clear that the pro-European reformist parties failed to properly assess their capabilities and set too many priorities for their modest experience on the Bulgarian political scene. On the one hand, they did try to make changes and push through important judicial reforms (the separation of the Judicial Council, the limitation of the powers and mandate of the Prosecutor General and the Judicial Council) during the Denkov cabinet, but the Constitutional Court overturned them in the summer of 2024. On the other hand, they supported the appointment of GERB’s top student Desislava Atanasova as a constitutional judge, bringing a strongly partisan personality into this high independent judicial body.

After this failure, however, instead of starting to think about what other changes would be possible and useful for the judicial system and to give new active life to the debate and a new direction for change , the reformers from the PP-DB decided to invest their time and energy, mostly in convincing citizens that Bulgaria's priority is the eurozone, thus shifting society's focus from the unrealized promises of judicial reforms and the construction of a tolerable social justice.

Quite logically, the failed reform policies led to rapid disappointment. A solid part of their initial public support shifted to other formations with radically different values, which turned the wheel of futile elections and wasted the nation's time and motivation.

As it became clear this week, the five-year rebellion against GERB's practices remained fruitless. While society was directed to reflect on the Eurozone, completely quietly and silently, without any expert, public, political and coalition debates, without consulting the Constitutional Court, Judge Desislava Atanasova became Bulgaria's representative before the Venice Commission, with only a ministerial proposal and approval. Another clear violation of the conditions not only for fair governance, but also for a real separation of powers.

We can buy bread with both euros and levs. The real priority is where we will eat it: in a country that provides justice? Or will we simply be happy that we have bread at all, while injustice is our main side dish?

Reformers need to focus on the right priority.

Sources
https://ec.europa.eu/olaf-report/2023/statistical-annex_en.html#Decision-taken-by-national-judicial-authorities
https://www.eppo.europa.eu/sites/default/files/2024-02/EPPO_Annual_Report_2023.pdf
https://www.dnevnik.bg/bulgaria/2024/07/26/4655718_konstitucionniiat_sud_slaga_tochka_na_sudebnata_reforma
https://www.svobodnaevropa.bg/a/izdiganeto-na-desislava-atanasoa-za-konstitucionen-sadia-provokira-raznoboi-v-pp-db/32782095.html

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