IT would require the most stalwart and valiant of ministers to take on the hydra that is organised crime in Bulgaria.

Organised crime returns to the public agenda for a few days after each high-profile assassination. These tend to follow a distinct pattern. A "businessman with a controversial reputation" is shot or blown up. The public is told, more often than not, that the businessman  "was registered with the police for drug trafficking/weapons dealing/money laundering". (Tick whichever is applicable). Some wonder why, if the police knew of the businessman's illegal activities, he was abroad in the streets, in his luxury car or designer bar, rather than in jail. After a few days, something else tops the news agenda. Arrests are few, trials are fewer, and in the past decade, there has been no sequel involving the conviction and jailing of a mafia big fish.

Between the news days that a hit occupies the front pages and television screens, organised crime conducts business as usual. A hydra indeed, involved not only in trafficking of drugs, people, and weapons, but also said to have links to legitimate businesses, including resorts, casinos, bars, the construction industry, and the sports industry.

There is what is said in public about organised crime, and what is said in private.

Public commentaries include those from various Western ambassadors, and those by the European Commission. Time and again, the EC has expressed concern that the inadequacy of the fight against organised crime is among factors that could jeopardise Bulgaria's scheduled accession to the European Union.

The EC view

In its October 2004 regular report on Bulgaria's readiness for EU accession, the EC said: "strong efforts will be necessary to foster Bulgaria's capacity to prosecute organised crime and corruption, which involves further reforms in the structures of the judiciary and of the police."

The same report provides a fair summary of what measures had been approved up to that point by the Simeon Saxe-Coburg government, which took office in 2001.

In the area of police co-operation and combating organised crime, a code of ethics for the Interior Ministry was approved in October 2003.

In December 2003, the regulations flowing from the Control of Explosives, Firearms and Ammunitions Act were amended.

In January 2004, Parliament endorsed an updated National Strategy against Crime. The updated strategy covered the period from 2002 to 2005 and focused on the fight against serious criminal acts.

In March 2004, a strategy for police careers and for optimisation of human resources management within the Interior Ministry was adopted. The strategy aimed at putting in place the basic conditions for a professional police career system.

In January 2004, the Law on Trafficking in Human Beings entered into force. To prevent trafficking in human beings, the Bulgarian authorities organised information campaigns in co-operation with non-government and intergovernmental organisations on the hidden risks of job offers to work abroad.

In March 2004, Bulgaria approved rules on the organisation and the activity of the National Committee on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, and rules on shelters for temporary accommodation and centres for protection of, and assistance to, victims of trafficking. There have been some arrests of people, including foreigners, involved in people trafficking.

The EC 2004 report said: "as regards police co-operation and organised crime, significant efforts are still needed to ensure that Bulgaria has an accountable, reliable and fully co-ordinated police organisation by accession.

"Recent reports indicate that the current arrangements for dealing with recruitment, promotion and demotion of police officers are non-transparent, and that a new human resources management approach is urgently needed. The training system is in need of further modernisation and rationalisation in line with EU practices."

The report described Bulgaria's international police co-operation as "efficient". Bulgaria has police liaison officers in several European capitals.

The EC said that, despite the ongoing implementation of the second national crime strategy, the National Service for Combating Organised Crime was not able to effectively address the situation, and did not have the means to act efficiently in the absence of clear rules on undercover investigations.

"There is significant room for improvement as regards co-operation with other law enforcement bodies," the EC report said.

It said that flaws in the pre-trial investigation phase partly explained the relative lack of success in the fight against organised crime syndicates.

Bulgaria should urgently put in place an efficient witness protection scheme, the EC said. Bulgaria had ratified the second additional protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, but needed to review its Penal Procedure Code in order to introduce the concepts of joint investigation teams, trans-border hot pursuit, audio and videoconferences, and interception of telecommunications.

In other comments, the EC said that the Interior Ministry had made considerable efforts to fight corruption in its agencies. However, its internal disciplinary procedures against police officers accused of corruption tended to be "very long, non-transparent and prone to irregularities and procedural errors".

A clear, transparent, objective way of dealing with those cases should be established as a matter of priority, the EC said.

Bulgaria currently awaits the latest EC report, due out in October this year, but in the meantime the previous government received a "warning letter" from the EC in June citing areas of continuing concern, including in the field of justice and home affairs.

The conspiracy theory

Beyond the public statements by ambassadors and the EC, there is what is said in private.

Some who watched the performance of the lacklustre minister Georgi Petkanov, who held the portfolio in the Saxe-Coburg government, and the ministry's glamorous chief secretary, Boiko Borissov, suggested in private that the reason that no high-profile organised crime figures were ever brought down was that there was a "private deal" between elements of the government and elements within organised crime. This deal, according to the theory, was that some low-level figures were fair game for arrest, particularly where such arrests aided certain vested interests. In a country where conspiracy theories are a national pastime, it was not surprising that this one - for which no proof, if it exists, has been made public - gained currency.

The tripartite government that took office in August has vowed to fulfill the requirements for EU accession. This means, by extension, acting against organised crime. The government has pledged to ensure the fast-tracking of a new Criminal Procedure Code, a sine qua non for accession.

Enter Petkov

Much has been heard from Roumen Petkov, the new Interior Minister.

Petkov, 44, unquestionably has clout within the BSP. While Sergei Stanishev's party was in opposition, Petkov was known to be a powerful figure in the party. A former mayor of Pleven (in 1997, he was suspended from office for a time in connection with allegedly illegally giving permission for construction of a racetrack and alleged illegal distribution of flats - charges that were not proven) and an MP from 2001 until his appointment as a Cabinet minister, Petkov is a deputy chairperson of the BSP Supreme Council, placing him in the inner circle of power. Given that he is a political heavyweight, whatever Petkov wants to do with the ministry, he should be able to achieve. And so far, has.

There was a natural focus on Petkov's ministry when, on August 25, former wrestling champion, convicted rapist, and wealthy businessman and football club owner Georgi Iliev was assassinated.

The assassination took place about a week after Petkov took office.

A day later, Petkov outlined his priorities as Interior Minister, underlining that they included measures that would have been adopted even had the Iliev assassination not taken place.

Petkov announced a nationwide investigation of organised crime groups. The relevant state bodies would check the financial status and property status of people with criminal records, as well as those close to them, the way that the money and property had been acquired, the business of their firms, and whether they were involved in tax evasion.

With this as "measure number one" there were seven further measures, he announced. These included specialised police operations, detention of people known to be involved in organised crime, co-operation with local administrations and civil society to improve crime prevention, and the active involvement of prosecutors and investigators in "search and investigation" operations by the Interior Ministry.

Petkov said that Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski would order tax audits, customs checks, and investigations into the accounts of people and companies associated with organised crime.

Petkov announced that he was proceeding with proposals for changes to the structure of the Interior Ministry. Changes to the ministry were to include new mechanisms for co-ordination among ministry services, and the demilitarisation of the ministry, meaning the use of civilian job titles instead of military ranks. He said that a General Police Directorate would be set up. Among bodies that would fall under its aegis would be the National Service for Combating Organised Crime, the police, and the gendarmerie. However, the National Security Service and Fire Department would remain independent.

Officers would be appointed only after a proper job interview process. Police regarded as excelling in their work would be rewarded with bonuses of 20 per cent.

In a portent of things to come, Petkov said, "the public appearances of key figures in the Interior Ministry must be substantially reduced and must be purpose-orientated. We must talk to the public and explain the measures and the effect of these measures. The rest is media appearances for their own sake, which impede the ministry's work".

For telegenic chief secretary Borissov, who had become a national idol in the past four years for his ubiquitous appearances in the media, the writing was clearly on the wall. Borissov, who had taken leave at the instance of Saxe-Coburg's party to act as a vote-getter in the June 25 parliamentary elections, had been allowed to stay on by Petkov.

But Borissov faced more than having to reduce his media appearances.

In a series of moves to stamp his personal authority on the ministry, Petkov first appointed a clutch of deputy ministers with specialist portfolios, in effect duplicating the work of the chief secretary.

Petkov then removed Borissov's authority to liaise with international law-enforcement organisations (a substantial blow for a man whose office wall was decked with a large collection of colour photographs of him with, among many others, the heads of the FBI, the CIA, and Russia's intelligence service).

In a flurry of activity, Petkov held talks with Prosecutor-General Nikola Filchev on action against the perpetrators of mafia assassinations, then met senior officials of the National Security Service and the prosecuting magistracy, and moved on to a series of meetings with EC officials, EU ambassadors, and embassy police attaches.

In his meetings with diplomats, Petkov said that he was determined to fulfill all commitments related to the justice and home affairs chapter of EU accession.

He told diplomats that police investigators would be re-trained in the light of the new Penal Code, corruption would be combated, border control would be stepped up, and he would adopt a "police close to the public" strategy.

It was reported that the dossier Petkov had requested on organised crime networks had been handed to him, but its contents were neither published nor leaked.

On September 8, Petkov was in the UK for a meeting of EU interior ministers. He used the opportunity to hold talks with various counterparts, pledging Bulgaria's co-operation in combating organised crime and terrorism at international level. In a meeting with UK home secretary Charles Clarke, Petkov vowed to back up EU policies in the Western Balkans.

The following day, speaking during question time in Parliament, Petkov said that his ministry would not be a "nursery of corruption". He said that between 2002 and 2005, 328 Interior Ministry officers had been fired for corruption, including 45 since the beginning of this year.

At a meeting with Parliament's committee on internal security and public order, Petkov called for a new law on "special surveillance means" - the Bulgarian term for wiretaps and other covert surveillance, always a vexed issue in a country where the constitution says that private communications are to be inviolable.

Up to that point, Petkov did not seem to have put a foot wrong, except in the eyes of Borissov and the chief secretary's fans.

The `public council' row

Two controversies followed, and Petkov rode the first one easily. London's Daily Telegraph published an article alleging that Bulgaria's secret services were the ones carrying out the organised crime assassinations. Petkov reacted by singling out the reaction by Ivan Kostov, who was prime minister for the four years before the Saxe-Coburg government and now leads the right-wing minority party the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria, saying that Kostov's statements gave the impression that "certain circles in our country" just wanted to smear Bulgaria's image in the eyes of the EU.

The second, and much more profound, controversy was one of Petkov's own making.

Setting up a "public council" to monitor the work of the ministry and recommend changes, including to the ministry's structure, Petkov filled it with former interior ministers and interior ministry chief secretaries. These included people whose CVs included posts with the notorious communist-era Sixth Department of the ministry, and figures from the former State Security. People who had been purged from office in the post-communist era were now back in the inner circle.

In a country where several contemporary organised crime groups are widely believed to be substantially rooted in former communist networks - especially in areas such as money-laundering and weapons smuggling - it was an extraordinary move.

Its establishment was among reasons used by Borissov as the pretext for his September 14 resignation letter. Moreover, it caused public outrage in political circles outside the BSP-National Movement Simeon II-Movement for Rights and Freedoms government coalition.
Kostov said the setting up of the council was a "shameful act of restoring the totalitarian past and an arrogant provocation against democracy". Right-wing parties said that they would raise the matter with the ambassadors of NATO countries.

In private conversations, Bulgarians with memories of the communist era expressed concern that the council would herald a rolling back of human rights, rather than any effective action against crime.

Petkov responded that the council had no operational or co-ordinating functions, nor would its members have access to operational information. He doubted that Bulgaria's EU and NATO partners would care who sat on the council, Petkov told journalists.

Replying to a question in Parliament by Kostov, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said on September 16 that the council was not a managerial body. The ministry would draw on its "expert opinions" but these would not be the determining factor in decisions by the Interior Ministry or the Cabinet, Stanishev said.

Stanishev promised a "more comprehensive approach" to fighting organised crime. The new Criminal Procedure Code would increase the efficiency of criminal proceedings against organised crime and corruption, and would provide for new means of gathering evidence in ways widely used in the EU and which had proven efficient.

He said that there would be amendments to the Administrative Violations and Sanctions Act to make it possible to sanction juristic persons for crimes including involvement in organised crime and corruption.

Stanishev said that serious progress already had been made in improving relations between the police, the investigating authority, prosecutors and the tax administration.

Some questions

At this writing, it is clear that the implementation of what may be dubbed the Petkov Plan will prove a fascinating narrative. Many issues and questions remain to be resolved.

First, how will it be possible to check the veracity of what Petkov and Stanishev say about the "public council", for which there is no means for the public to hold accountable?

Second, if indeed links exist between former communist networks and contemporary organised crime groups, how effective could the public council be? Third, if they truly can be helpful in fighting organised crime, why were there no successes against organised crime when they held office?

And fourth, if Petkov already has a dossier on organised crime assassinations, and he and Stanishev are correct in saying that co-ordination among various state institutions already has improved, how long will the wait be before the first arrest and conviction?