“Poverty in Bulgaria is shocking, it’s not like the climate, it’s the result of bad governance,” said at a briefing the head of the monitoring group from the European Parliament Sofia in Veld, who summed up his impressions of the visit to Bulgaria by a group of MEPs. LIBE. It was about poverty that they talked in the morning at their meeting with the ombudsman Diana Kovacheva.
Veld pointed out that the fight against corruption is ultimately a fight against poverty.
“Because I connect these issues, it is not an ideological debate on corruption,” she added.
She pointed out that it is shocking when the most basic needs of people such as water supply, heating, lighting are not met.
“And it is not true that there is no water, that there is no heating and lighting – there is bad management,” concluded the Dutch woman from “Renew Europe“.
Veld acknowledged that MEPs had not received answers to all their questions since their meeting with Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev. According to her, members of the EP delegation asked for action on specific investigations.
“We asked a question related to the infamous photo of a former prime minister. We received an answer – I don’t know where this case is in terms of production,” said the head of the monitoring group, alluding to the photos with the gold bars in Boyko Borissov’s bedroom. .
It became clear from her comment that the chief prosecutor was not informed what was happening at this stage.
“We left the meeting with the impression that not all our questions were answered,” she said.
According to her, the situation with the “extraordinary powers” of the chief prosecutor is “very alarming”.
“We have expressed concerns about the right of the chief prosecutor to suspend proceedings,” the MEP added.
She also expressed disapproval that no one had been charged or convicted in investigations into police violence last summer during the protests.
The other focus of the visit, she said, was media independence.
“There must be independent media so that the authorities can report,” she said.
According to her, the EU should consider introducing European rules on media ownership.
“It is important to have a strong investigative prosecutor’s office, but also a strong investigative journalism to expose corruption,” she said. Veld revealed that he continues to believe that Bulgaria really ranks 112th in terms of freedom of speech, although several people here have tried to dissuade it. “Media ownership and transparency is the big issue because there are people behind the scenes and they use these media to protect their business interests,” she added. However, she was hopeful because in the last two days she had met people in different positions who had shown determination.
“We are here because there is a systemic problem related to the rule of law, corruption and freedom of the media,” said the Bulgarian representative in the delegation, PES MEP Elena Yoncheva.
She appreciated the fact that her fellow MEPs have already turned their attention to Bulgaria.
“Journalists are being systematically killed in Bulgaria,” Yoncheva said of the problem of media independence.
“Today we are not even in Europe, but somewhere between Brazil and Malaysia, and in 2007 we were in the same place with France. Our task is to establish the facts and provoke debates, to take such legislative measures to help the country.” , she added.
And stressed that we need legislative changes to ensure the independence of the source of the media and the funding of investigative journalism.
“For the last 10 years, EU funds under various communication programs have been distributed opaquely among the media and they have become PR agencies. If we do not deal with corruption, we will be a poor country with dependent media,” the Bulgarian MEP predicted. She also expressed the impression from the meetings in the last two days that the country has taken the “right path”.
The other participants in the EP delegation were Claire Daly (Left, Ireland), Vladimir Bilchik (EPP, Slovakia), Analiza Tardino (ID, Italy), Patrick Jaki (EQF, Poland), Sergei Lagodinski (Greens / ESA, Germany).
