EU-Report Accession Bulgaria
In its 1997 Opinion, the Commission concluded that Bulgaria fulfilled the political criteria.
Since that time, Bulgaria has made considerable progress in further consolidating and deepening
the stability of its institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and
respect for and protection of minorities. This has been confirmed over the past year. Bulgaria
continues to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria.
Significant progress has been made on the judicial reform strategy with the adoption of an
Action Plan and major amendments to the Law on the Judicial System. These need now to be
implemented in order to translate them into concrete improvements in the functioning of the
system. Issues relating to the structure of the judicial system and immunity still need to be
addressed.
There have also been positive further developments in the fight against corruption, which
remains a cause for serious concern, with inter alia the adoption of an action plan to implement
the National Anti-Corruption Strategy. Whilst the need to tackle corruption is now high on the
agenda Bulgaria needs to continue to make concerted efforts to implement the measures.
There has been some further progress on public administration reform with revisions to the
legislative framework and the adoption of a Strategy for Modernisation of the State
Administration but serious efforts are now required to develop and implement reforms to ensure an
efficient, transparent and accountable public administration.
Bulgaria continues to respect human rights and freedoms. Bulgaria has considerably improved
the legal framework, for tackling trafficking, corruption and organised crime as well as for
asylum. However, there are a number of areas which continue to give cause for concern. A new
issue that has been identified is the very poor living conditions of people in institutions, in
particular the mentally handicapped. This needs to be addressed urgently. Bulgaria also needs to
strengthen its efforts to reform the child care system, to make sure that the best interests of
the child are reflected and reduce the number of children in institutions. Poor conditions for
detainees in particular in police stations and pre-trial detention also need to be addressed.
The recent changes to the Penal Code are an important step in removing discrimination on the
grounds of sexual orientation.
Concerning the Roma community, little has been done to remedy problems of social
discrimination or to take concrete action to improve very poor living conditions. The adoption of
comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation would be an important step forward in this
regard.
© EU Commission -- 2003-03-30
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