The Adventures of the CVM in Bulgaria and Romania

The paper reports the findings of a comprehensive study of the European Commission’s reports under the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) regarding Bulgaria and Romania for the period from 2007 to 2012 focusing on comparative dynamics. The main question is to what extent the policy of the European Union (EU) as practiced so far, instrumentalized in the form of the CVM, does justify the explicit assumption implied in the mechanism’s name that it is more than mere monitoring, and also a form of cooperation? We do not confine our research to tracing the extent to which Bulgaria or Romania comply to the recommendations of the European Commission but investigate broader developments in these two specific cases. We studied the Commission’s findings, comments, and assessments in all fields covered by the CVM (and not only compliance with the anti-corruption recommendations), using an analytical instrument comprised of 133 different indicators concerning the broadest possible spectrum of substantive, structural, and evaluative dimensions of this specific bilateral relationship. The empirical evidence supports several major conclusions: a) if the overall achievements of the two countries regarding rule of law promotion, the fight against corruption included, are compared, the differences between the two cases are so marginal that it is, in fact, pointless to underline the difference; b) the maximum final advancement up to 2012, amounting to 0.17 point of interval from 0 to 3, is truly negligible and does not count as ‘progress’; c) for the period under scrutiny Romania was performing only relatively better than Bulgaria in terms of getting more (but qualified) appraisals for higher results under the CVM. A hypothetical assumption, implicit at least in the labeling of the ‘progress reports’, that there has been a sustained tendency towards progress in bringing Bulgaria and Romania up to the standards of the other EU member states, does not find any empirical proof. What we encounter is rather an oscillation around a conventional line of a maintained status quo of a blocked judicial reform, which is both derivative from and conducive to a meager anti-corruption fight at a high political level. It should be stressed that this comprehensive quantitative study of all reports for the first six years of the CVM’s implementation provides proof for the Commission’s political assessment given both in the introduction and in the recommendations for Bulgaria and Romania in the July reports of 2012. The implementation of the CVM for the last ten years is essentially a ‘mixed picture’. This crucial ambivalence is due, on the one hand, to the undoubted positive pressure over local authorities to systematically carry out prorule of law reforms and achieve the standards of EU membership and due to some limited progress to this major goal, on the other hand. The latter should count as a substantial advancement when checked against the initial situation in Bulgaria and Romania at the moment of their EU accession, but it is still insufficient in making both countries compatible with EU members. The present paper should be read as providing arguments which may help the reader to think on what can be done in order for the CVM to achieve its explicitly defined goals and how. The Adventures of the CVM in Bulgaria and Romania georgi Dimitrov, kaloyan Haralampiev and Stoycho Stoychev 4 | MAXCAP Working Paper No. 29 | August 2016