Bulgaria still has a chance to meet the requirements for joining the EU in 2007, but it must quickly deal with delays in honouring its commitments in the areas of agriculture and justice and home affairs, warned the Open Society Institute.Bulgaria is making very slow progress in meeting the EU membership criteria in the critical areas of agriculture and justice and home affairs, the Open Society Institute (OSI) in Sofia warned in an interim report on 29 January.
The paper, whose final version is due at the end of March, focuses on five areas outlined by the European Commission (EC) as being of "serious concern". Delays in the fulfilment of commitments in the fields of company law, services, regional policy, agriculture and justice and home affairs require "immediate and decisive action," the EC said in its latest monitoring report on Bulgaria, issued in October.
A new EC report on Bulgaria's preparedness for EU membership is due in May, when the bloc's executive arm will also recommend whether the country should join the Union on 1 January 2007, as planned, or should have its entry delayed by one year.
The OSI's assessment of progress Bulgaria has made in implementing the required measures is based on a four-level scale -- "implemented", "rather implemented", "rather unimplemented" and "unimplemented".
The experts' general conclusion is that, as of 16 January, 34 per cent of all commitments in the five critical areas have been implemented on time. Another 38 per cent of the required measures have been "rather implemented", meaning that progress towards fulfilling the commitment has been made, but the deadline has not been met.
Twenty-six per cent of the requirements in all five areas fall in the "rather unimplemented" category, signifying that some action has taken place, but there are serious delays. There are no measures on which Bulgaria has failed to take any action, according to the report.
However, in the two critical areas -- agriculture and justice and home affairs -- 41 per cent of the commitments Bulgaria has made are rather unimplemented, the OSI said.
The main obstacle in the justice and home affairs area is the lack of co-ordination among the 13 agencies operating in this field, the report said. Another major problem concerns the adoption of necessary legislation, which is passed quickly and within the envisioned deadlines, but is of poor quality.
"Most of the legal acts are adopted on time, but with a clear realisation that they will need to be amended," said OSI analyst Martin Gramatikov.
Bulgaria still has a chance to meet its commitments by the time of its scheduled entry into the EU but a serious effort is required, OSI Executive Director Georgi Stoychev said.
In the area of agriculture, 59 per cent of the required measures are assessed as having been "implemented" or "rather implemented". Although 41 per cent remain "rather unimplemented", the OSI experts are optimistic about the capacity to fulfil commitments in this area.
Bulgaria has made the most progress in implementing actions related to the protection of intellectual and industrial property rights -- that is, in the area of company law, where 66 per cent of the required measures are assessed as "implemented" and 34 per cent as "rather implemented". In the regional policy field, 93 per cent of the measures are "implemented" or "rather implemented".