The European Commission (EC) published on February 4 2008 its interim report on Bulgaria's progress concerning the judiciary reform and the fight against corruption and organised crime.

In an executive summary of the report, published on its website, the European executive said it was particularly concerned for the areas of fighting high-level corruption and organised crime, whereas efforts to fight corruption within local government should be strengthened further to achieve better results.

It did point out, however, that Bulgaria's efforts in the field of the judicial reform and in fighting corruption at its borders were successful since EC's first report on Bulgaria,published on June 27 2007.

Given the short period of time since the first report issued, the interim report contains only a factual update of Bulgaria's progress and does not assess in detail what has been achieved under each benchmark, the EC press release said.

The report also outlines the concerns on Bulgaria's progress that need to be addressed to the country before EC's full assessment in mid-2008 and presents an overview of the assistance provided to Bulgaria in the areas relevant to the benchmarks so as any possible assistance gaps be removed for the future.

The six benchmarks on Bulgaria's progress will be judged are as follows: adopting constitutional amendments removing any ambiguity regarding the independence and accountability of the judicial system; ensuring a more transparent and efficient judicial process by adopting and implementing a new judicial system act and a new civil procedure code; continuing the reform of the judiciary in order to enhance professionalism, accountability and efficiency; monitoring professional, non-partisan investigations into allegations of high-level corruption and reporting internal inspections of public institutions and on the publication of assets of high-level officials; taking further measures to prevent and fight corruption, in particular at the borders and within local government; implementing a strategy to fight organised crime, focusing on serious crime, money laundering as well as on the systematic confiscation of assets of criminals.

As the EC suggested in its June 2007 report, at the end of October 2007 Bulgaria adopted a detailed Action Plan on how it intends to meet the six benchmarks, the EC said. Although it recognises Bulgaria's efforts to produce such a plan, EC's interim report says the plan is not coherent enough and has some gaps in it.

The areas concerning local and high-level corruption, as well as fighting organised crime, lack precise targets and meaningful performance indicators and the measures proposed to handle them are not sufficient, the European executive said. The report proposed that the Action Plan flaws be corrected, that the plan be permanently updated and that its implementation be monitored by a central coordination mechanism.

The next EC report assessing Bulgaria's progress under the six benchmarks is scheduled for July 2008.