Europol and Borisov: Much 'Congratulation' about Nothing?

Editorial |Author: Ivan Dikov | May 16, 2011, Monday // 22:41|  views

Europol Director Rob Wainwright has praised the Bulgarian government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his deputy, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov, too many times.

Three times in just one year, to be precise, all of those during visits in Sofia. That is, not counting all the other praise less important Europol officials have extended to the Borisov Cabinet. What is Europol's deal, anyway?

If you live in Bulgaria, you can't help but be stupefied by such statements – that the Bulgarian government (whichever one it is – the Stanishev Cabinet was also praised by countless foreign officials, God knows why) "has made a lot of progress" and has "accomplished" and "achieved" many "hard-to-achieve" and "good-to-accomplish" "accomplishments" and "achievements" and blah-blah-progress-blah-success-blah in the fight against organized crime and corruption...

To be fair, come to think of it, what else can an official like Wainwright be expected to say? Europol in itself is tiny and without much power so it has to play it nice with national police authorities rather than alienate them.

Then, of course, the Borisov police authorities must be providing some sort of useful technical assistance once in a while – to the extent that any sort of assistance is useful for an institution which has coordination functions.

None of that obscures the fact that, in spite of the great expectations, the Borisov Cabinet has actually failed to score any spectacular successes against organized crime; not to mention that corruption continues to thrive horizontally and vertically across the country.

Not a single major mafia boss has been sentenced since Borisov took over 2 years ago, and it has been thanks to US diplomatic cables leaked on WikiLeaks that Bulgarians have been reading nice and concise summaries of how powerful Bulgarian organized crime groups are increasingly switching to semi-legal and legal activities and financial crime – whose prosecution in the Bulgarian conditions is virtually unthinkable.

Borisov and Tsvetanov have achieved one unconditional success against organized crime – they shattered the gang of the Impudent which had carried out more than a dozen kidnappings for ransom before 2009. Unfortunately, not even here did the Interior and the prosecution manage to make the case stick in court, and most of the Impudent gangsters are roaming free the Bulgarian countryside and cityscape.

All throughout 2010, the Interior Minister was staging loud special operations one after another but even those are now gone; the special operations have resulted in no major sentences of criminals, if any. All of that is pretty sad, not to use other epithets, for a government, which came to power on anti-crime, anti-corruption ticket.

It is TRUE that Borisov and Tsvetanov are dealing with the Bulgarian judiciary – as well as the Prosecutor's Office – and that those are about as rotten as they could be – with the life-long serving judges being virtually untouchable. Many of them are like Catholic priests granting indulgencies in the Middle Ages – it is up to them to pardon their own sins at will, and to pardon the sins of others in exchange for a little something. At the risk of offending those who are the few exceptions, if you are part of that system, you can be as corrupt as you want to be.

Borisov and especially Tsvetanov have been slamming the judiciary time and again, time and again, time and again... So what? Isn't a corrupt judiciary the perfect excuse for unwillingness - or inability - to crack down on crime and corruption?

On top of all of that, Borisov and especially Tsvetanov might have gone a bit too far in their criticism of the Bulgarian judiciary - or at least they haven't gone the right way about criticizing it - as the European Association of Judges has concluded.

In spite of the rampant corruption among its ranks, the Bulgarian judiciary is still supposed to be "independent" - to the extent that the seperation of powers makes sense in the current Bulgarian reality. So anybody who thinks in black and white terms about law enforcement in Bulgaria - i.e. a virtuous executive and police vs. an evil judiciary - is very far from the truth.

Meanwhile, with the EAJ report, just as the Bulgarian Interior can get congratulated by fellow foreign policemen, the Bulgarian judiciary has also demonstrated it can draw upon the international solidarity of fellow jurists.

What is more, let's not forget that there is plenty of general corruption within the police itself. So even if the political leadership on top is determined to beat down organized crime, there are enough leaks along the chain.

But as time progresses in the Borisov Cabinet's term, one starts to doubt increasingly the government's political will. So either the government doesn't have enough of it, or it is incompetent/incapable to cope with the grave problems, or it is facing the united front of corruption civil servants and criminal bosses... or with this multiple-choice question, it is the good old Answer (D): all of the above.

Prime Minister Borisov has been ridiculed by wannabe Bulgarian intellectuals for his English-language skills – or the lack thereof – especially when he explained that he would only be looking to hear the word "congratulation" in a foreign official's speech in English, and would then stop listening because everything else would be clear – he would be getting congratulated for his successes.

Actually, the whole thing is no laughing matter. And Borisov's English-language knowledge doesn't really matter, either. What he and everybody in Bulgaria should focus on is the sad and grave truth that he keeps getting "congratulation" from cool dudes such as the Europol director but the regular residents of Bulgaria – both Bulgarians and foreigners alike – keep racking their brains so as to figure out what the "congratulation" is for.

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Tags: Rob Wainwright, Europol, Boyko Borisov, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, organized crime, corruption, judiciary, judicial system, judges, Prosecutor's Office, police, Interior Minister, interior ministry, Prime Minister

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