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14 EU ambassadors urge Bulgaria to adopt anti-corruption law

Xinhua, September 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

A group of 14 ambassadors of European Union (EU) countries urged Bulgaria on Monday to adopt the law against high level corruption as soon as possible, a joint statement said.

The statement, issued five days after the country's Parliament refused to adopt the bill, said "the rejection without further parliamentary discussion of the initial text proposed by the government sends a negative signal in the frame of the fight against corruption."

"The effective fight against corruption is a crucial element of the Rule of Law, and has been put at the top of the agenda by the European Commission in its successive Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) reports, endorsed by our governments and the successive governments of the Republic of Bulgaria," said the statement, agreed by the ambassadors from the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Luxembourg.

The ambassadors hoped the political parties who rejected the draft law against high level corruption would present new ideas as soon as possible to tackle this issue, "hence showing this failure does not mean that Members of Parliament disregard the importance of combatting corruption at any level," the statement said.

The last CVM report issued in January said Bulgaria has made slow progress in the past 12 months in the areas of judicial reform and the fight against corruption, and further steps are needed.

"Responses to the well-known problems in area of corruption and organised crime have remained piecemeal and lacking in overall strategic direction," the report said. There are very few examples where high-level cases of corruption or organised crime have been brought to conclusion in court, the report added. Endit