On 16 May 2006, the Commission will make its suggestion to the European Council on the date of entry to the EU of the two acceding countries, Romania and Bulgaria. Analysis of the European Commission’s recent reports on the two countries shows that corruption has emerged as the primary cause for concern about their readiness to join. Typical of this is the Commission’s Comprehensive Monitoring Report of October 2005, which stated that:

“Corruption remains a serious problem in Romania and Bulgaria. If it remains at current levels, corruption threatens the internal market, the proper functioning of EU policies and EU-funded programmes. Urgent and forceful action is needed to demonstrate the ability of Romania and Bulgaria to combat corruption effectively…”

Is the problem of corruption as bad as the Commission states? According to TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index, corruption is perceived to be worse in Romania and Bulgaria than in the Central and Eastern European countries which have acceded to the EU. Figures show that the situation is perceived as better in Bulgaria than in Romania, where it is perceived as similar to or worse than in the newer candidate countries, Turkey, Croatia, and Macedonia, and the Stability and Association countries of the Western Balkans. These findings are supported by other research, such as Freedom House’s Nations in Transit, the World Bank Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, and so on.

*Score ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt). At least 3 but at the most 16 surveys were included in this index. More information here

Analysis of patterns of corruption in Romania and Bulgaria shows a similar situation to the rest of the region. TI’s Global Corruption Barometer shows that the public in Romania considers the most corrupt institutions to be political parties, customs, judiciary, and that the cleanest institutions are religious bodies, the military, and the tax revenue service. In Bulgaria, the public again identifies customs, political parties, and judiciary as most corrupt, and religious bodies, the military, public utilities as least corrupt.

When asked if they or a family member paid a bribe in the last year, in Romania 22% said yes, whereas in Bulgaria the figure is just 7% - less than the global average of 9%. In Bulgaria, the public feels more optimistic, with 50% saying that they believe that in the future the situation regarding corruption will get better or remain the same and only 15% feeling that it will worsen. In Romania, in contrast, 36% say that they expect the situation to remain the same or improve, and 31% feel that it will get worse.

These figures tally with research carried out by TI Romania while preparing an analysis of the National Integrity System of Romania in 2005 (the National Integrity System approach is a TI method of assessing structures for ensuring public integrity in a country). The situation has improved compared to the period before 1999 when it was found that the parliament and the executive did not produce public integrity policies, that the judiciary lacked independence and capacity, and that the integrity mechanisms in the Court of Accounts, police, and public administration were weak. At that point, essentially, the only functioning pillar of the National Integrity System was the private media. Despite reforms since 1999, problems remain to be resolved and TI-Romania believes that the Romanian Integrity System is still only partial enforced, with a very negative situation in health and education systems, local government, and licensees procedures.

Romania: Progress in the past six months in the fight against corruption?

In the past six months, under pressure from the EU, the Government of Romania and President Traian Basescu have put great pressure on the Romanian anticorruption bodies. At the same time, there has been a visible decrease in the political parties’ commitment to supporting anticorruption policies and legal initiatives. For instance, parties blocked several important initiatives, including specific anti-corruption reforms.

TI-Romania believes that real progress would be demonstrated by improvements in political standards across the board and not just the credibility of Minister of Justice, Monica Macovei, who has a very good public image because of her honesty. Romanian citizens have seen few concrete changes in their relations with public sector and public services.

The National Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office (DNA)

TI Romania welcomes the work of the National Anti-Corruption Prosecution Office (DNA) and recent successes including its initiation of the fight against grand corruption (however this is a very recenty move, so concrete results have yet to be achieved).

The chapter remains concerned about the capacity of the DNA, in particular in terms of human resources. It identifies three weak points:

• The DNA office does not use qualitative research as a base for personnel training, such as logical criminal profile of corruption, trial analyses or dealing with the most important issues in prosecuting corrupt persons;
• Professional assets have been built only through sharing experiences with similar EU member states’ institutions and through empirically based research;
• 70% of the personnel are staff members who have been employed for many years, some of whom are held responsible for limited results.

Enforcement of anti-corruption legislation and preventive measures

TI Romania feels that there have been limited results in terms of legislation necessary to enforce anti-corruption policy, where Romania has very low level of enforcement. Romania does not yet have specialized bodies for monitoring and punishing conflicts of interest or incompetence. An adequate legal framework in this field does not yet exist.

The Romanian government declared that a special law on conflict of interest and would be drafted and that an independent body would be set up February 2005, later revised to July 2005. Recently, the Minister of Justice presented a draft law which was criticized by civil society representatives and experts because it is full of factual mistakes. The draft law provides a fiscal public policy in terms of asset control but does not include provisions for anticorruption measures in public decision-making. The anti-corruption institution that the draft law envisages is not independent in the spirit of the commitments made in 2004 and 2005.

Regarding the protection of whistleblowers, the deadline for establishment of the framework was January 2005, but it was only implemented in August 2005 following a high profile TI-Romania advocacy campaign. A major problem with the framework is that it is only enforced at the level of the central administration.

Progress in fighting grand corruption and corruption within law enforcement bodies

High-level official investigations have begun but it is too early to assess the results and the quality of the investigations. The real test will be to take the investigations to independent courts for trial. The General Anti-Corruption Directorate in the Ministry of the Interior was launched, but still faces resistance from established structures within the Ministry, in particular from the intelligence unit. The Anti-Money Laundering Office has improved its institutional capacity but it is still too early to judge the results of these changes.

The customs system remains affected by corruption; this has even been noted by President Basescu himself. Opinion polls show that the customs system is considered one of the four most corrupt institutions in Romania, even if it has come down one step in the rank. Business people’s perception of customs has improved, but this does not correspond to the general perception of the public.

TI-Romania is very concerned about the future of anticorruption reforms and the sustainability of political commitment after EU accession. Since 2004, when Romania finished accession negotiations, the tracking of institutional reforms decreased and efforts were focused on the EU safeguard clause.

TI-Romania considers that the accession date of 1 January 2007 is appropriate, but it is necessary to maintain the pressure on the Romanian government to continue efforts to fight corruption and increase the level of public integrity. It is very important to solve the big issues related to preventing corruption, especially related to controlling conflicts of interest, incompatibilities, and asset control. TI Romania recommends creation of an independent body in charge of those competences as set out in previous proposals.

The situation in Bulgaria

In the case of Bulgaria, TI’s national chapter welcomes the Bulgarian government’s reforms, in particular the new National Strategies on Transparent Governance and on Preventing and Combating Corruption. It emphasises however that the adoption of these new anti-corruption strategies must be followed by rigorous implementation and there is a clear need for institutions to cooperate among themselves in order to effectively fight corruption.

It is noteworthy that, unlike the previous Bulgarian anti-corruption strategy, both of these new strategies contain monitoring mechanisms and measures for assessing implementation. The inclusion of civil society in monitoring implementation of the strategies and other anti-corruption measures is a positive development – so long as it is realised in practice.

Comprehensive anti-corruption efforts still need to be applied in the public administration, political parties, healthcare sector, and the judiciary. Adoption of new anti-corruption standards must be followed by rigorous implementation; all institutions must demonstrate the will to cooperate and to put into practice anti-corruption measures.

If implementation takes place as planned, reforms should bring about reductions in corruption levels, improvements in the quality of life, and promised economic benefits. After all, ultimately the reforms are not for the EU but for the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania.