EU says report won't deal with Bulgaria funds

The European Commission said on Thursday that a report on the state of justice, corruption and organised crime in Bulgaria and Romania this month would not discuss a possible withholding of EU funds from either newcomer.
It was responding to questions about a Reuters report that quoted a senior EU source as saying the European Union executive was considering recommending withholding some aid from Bulgaria because of concerns about corruption and maladministration.
"The report that the Commission will adopt at the end of June will deal with the judicial system, the questions of corruption and the question of organised crime for Bulgaria and Romania," Commission spokesman Mark Gray told a news briefing.
"It will not deal with the question of the possibility of withholding EU funds."
Gray said the Commission would consider whether to propose such a measure later in the year after a separate audit of whether the Black Sea countries which joined the EU in January have put in place proper financial control mechanisms.
Under their accession treaty, the EU has the right to curb farm subsidies, regional aid payments and judicial co-operation in the first two years if they do not meet certain benchmarks.
The senior source said the Commission was likely to trigger at least one financial safeguard to show EU taxpayers it was protecting their interests and to press Sofia to crack down harder on corruption and improve public administration.
No such action was likely against Romania, he added. Romania is due to receive EU aid worth 11.5 billion euros ($15.30 billion) in 2007-09 and Bulgaria 4.6 billion euros.
The Bulgarian member of the European Commission, Meglana Kuneva, told reporters Sofia had fulfilled an EU requirement to amend its constitution to secure judicial independence and was making progress on justice reform and crime-fighting.
Asked whether she expected the EU executive to trigger any of the safeguards, she said: "It could happen if there was no delivery on the Bulgarian side. But the constitutional amendment has been delivered and the rest is the result of peer reviews, and I think there have been developments."