Tag Archives | Bulgaria

Bulgarian politics: how to ensure a referendum fails

On Sunday, 25 October 2015, telephones started ringing at 7 am at the offices of Transparency International Bulgaria (TI Bulgaria). A team of eight colleagues was taking calls from concerned citizens. Another two colleagues with legal expertise started preparing complaints about voting irregularities. Welcome to election day, Bulgarian style. 6.8 million Bulgarians have the opportunity […]

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An anti-corruption reform agenda for Bulgaria

The immediate reason for the protests against the Bulgarian government, which started in mid-June and are still going on, was the appointment  of a person with a doubtful reputation, very low integrity and an obvious lack of competence in the eyes of public perception to head the state agency for national security. The lack of […]

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Corruption is still a problem for Croatia

Croatia becomes EU member number 28 on 1 July. After Tudjman and Milosevic and a bloody war 20 years ago in the Balkans, this is definitely good news for both the European Union and Croatia. The new story of the Balkans started with disintegration 20-odd years ago, but Croatia’s membership is a clear sign of […]

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Bulgaria closes door on election monitors

Last week hundreds of Bulgarians protested in front of the Parliament, with some of them throwing tomatoes at the building of the legislature and calling for the end of corruption and “political hypocrisy”.  Reuters and the Financial Times quickly asked if this was a “tomato revolution against corruption”: “Nikolay Kolev, better known as ‘Bosiya’ (Barefoot), […]

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EU: Bulgaria and Romania fail the corruption test again

Over the past months, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), has been exasperated with Bulgaria’s failure to put corrupt senior officials and crime bosses behind bars. Meanwhile in neighbouring Romania, trouble has been brewing since a major political turf fight has taken centre stage. The timing couldn’t have been worse. […]

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Why do citizens sell their vote?

This weekend Bulgaria holds its presidential and local elections. Diana Kovatcheva, Executive Director of Transparency International Bulgaria, writes about their new report that has been making waves with concerns that vote-buying is an all too common practice. Transparency International Bulgaria has been monitoring the transparency of election campaigns for ten years (see our last report […]

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Public procurement: Keeping government spending corruption-free

Transparency International’s Annual Report highlights work from more than 100 countries around the world. The following extract looks at what TI chapters are doing to keep spending on government services clean and transparent. Trillions of dollars are spent every year worldwide on publicly funded projects – everything from schools and hospitals, to roads and bridges, […]

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Corruption in Europe: Taking the pulse, prescribing reform

Paul Zoubkov and Helen Turek talk about Transparency International’s Europe wide initiative to improve national anti-corruption systems. Good governance, accountability and rule of law are among the key hallmarks of a healthy society, and yet right across Europe, there is a deep sense of frustration that key national institutions and actors are not living up […]

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Wake up, EU, Stockholm is calling!

“The European Council invites the Commission to develop indicators, on the basis of existing systems and common criteria, to measure efforts in the fight against corruption, (…) and to develop a comprehensive anti-corruption policy” (EU Stockholm Programme) It’s not without reason that this reference is in the Stockholm Progamme: Greece is drowning in corruption, the Commission […]

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