Bulgaria fears crime problem could block EU accession

The Bulgarian government fears that a failure to end the country's gang turf wars and reform its inefficient justice system will sink its hopes to join the European Union in 2007, a minister admitted Tuesday.

Meglena Kuneva, the minister for European integration, told the press it was not excluded that rampant crime and the courts' failure to cope with the problem could delay accession.

"We have to listen to the criticism coming from Europe. If Bulgaria does not manage to contain the crime problem, our accession may have to wait another year."

Kuneva was commenting on a damning report by a British expert contracted by the European Commission to evaluate Bulgaria's progress in adopting the chapter on justice and home affairs in its negotiations with Brussels.

The report, which was published in the daily Trud on Friday, concluded that Bulgaria "constitutes the weakest point in the fight against organised crime in the Balkans."

"Bulgaria has to take concrete steps to convince Europe that it is capable of dealing with the gangsters who walk around killing each other," the author, Brian Davis, said.

Interior Minister Georgy Petkanov has criticised the report for relying on "outdated figures" but Kuneva warned that "underestimating the findings would be counterproductive for Bulgaria and risked delaying its accession by a year."

Bulgaria has completed its negotiations with Brussels and is hoping to sign its accession accord at the beginning of 2005.

Petkanov on Friday conceded that the justice system was inefficient, saying that hardly 10 percent of criminals are convicted, even though police manage to solve 59 percent of crimes.

The secretary general of the interior ministry, Boiko Borissov, also agreed that "a large part of the findings correspond to reality", but said reform plans were in the pipeline that would make both the police and the courts function more effectively.

Parliament is due in autumn to pass a law on combatting organised crime, as well as amendments to the penal code that aim to simplify the admission of testimony and to protect witnesses, as well as make under-cover investigations easier.

Organised crime became rampant in the instability that followed the fall of the former communist regime in Bulgaria in 1989.

The country's gangs have turned mainly to smuggling, drug trafficking and prostitution rings in recent years, and have become embroiled in turf wars that have seen dozens of powerful criminals assassinated since the beginning of 2003.

Last week two suspected criminals were assassinated in Sofia and in Bourgas, in the east of the country, and at the end of July a gang boss and five bodyguards were gunned down mafia-style in a restaurant in the capital.

In June two men disguised as priests opened fire in a cafe, killing three people and injuring two.

The interior ministry said last year that it had "neutralised" 128 of the 260 gangs operating in the underworld.

But as the killings continue, various groups have proposed radical measures to bring the situation under control.

In a bid at coping with the violent methods used by the gangs, the interior ministry and the state prosecutor's office have even proposed that military judges take cases that involve "paramilitary outfits that use bombs, grenade launchers and automatic rifles."

The leader of the rightwing labour union Podkrepa, Konstantin Trentchev, has suggested that the population form vigilante groups to defend themselves against "Gypsy criminals", provoking an outcry from human rights groups.

A proposed law regarding the confiscation of ill-begotten gains, has not found support in parliament.

It has been described by the president of the Employers's Union, Vassil Vassilev, as a "retrograde" plan that would not please but alienate the European Union.