Bulgaria Adopts Five-Year Plan to Fight Graft

Fighting top-level graft will be key priority in the period 2015-2020, according to a anti-corruption strategy blueprint adopted by Bulgaria’s government on Wednesday.

Realizing that corruption is a major threat to Bulgaria’s democracy and economic growth, the cabinet plans to boost the efficiency and coordination of the different state bodies tasked with preventing and fighting graft.

The need to draft and implement a national strategy for preventing and combating corruption was a key requirement of the European Commission in its January report on Bulgaria under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM). Bulgaria’s centre-right minority coalition government led by Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has already made this task part of its programme for sustainable development in the period 2014-2018.

Fighting corruption among politicians with emphasis on vote buying, cracking down on corruption at the low levels of state administration and promoting public intolerance to corruption are all parts of the strategy blueprint.

Special attention will be paid to preventing and counteracting graft among members of the judiciary, the Interior Ministry and state agencies exercising control.

Setting up a special body that will look into assets acquired by senior state officials and possible conflict of interests in their decisions is also part of the government’s anti-corruption programme.

Legislation defining the powers of the new anti-corruption body should be approved by parliament by the middle of 2015. It should start operating at the beginning of next year.

Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Kuneva will be in charge of coordinating anti-corruption activities under the programme, the government decided.

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