Bulgaria Mulls 2 Anti-mafia Agencies

Bulgaria's Justice Minister, Margarita Popova, informs the two new agency to fight corruption and crime will start work in the beginning of 2011. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria is planning to create two brand new agencies to counter corruption and organized crime in order to clean its tarnished image as one of the most corrupt EU Member States.

The statement was made by Bulgaria's Justice Minister, Margarita Popova, in an interview for Reuters, cited by Darik radio.

The interview notes the pressure on Romania and Bulgaria coming from Brussels to deal effectively with corruption and organized crime, but reminds the EC praised Bulgaria for its will to carry out reforms in their July report on justice and home affairs through the so-called Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM).

Popova says the two agencies must start work as early as the beginning of 2011. One of them will probe all suspicions of conflict of interests and will have the authority to issue administrative sanctions, fines and job dismissal orders while the other one will focus in corruption prevention in early stages.

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