Meglena Kuneva: If The Mechanism For Cooperation And Verification is dropped, investment will increase

“If the Mechanism for Cooperation and Verification is dropped, investment will increase. Joining Schengen will lead to GDP growth. We need to measure justice and security in terms of economic growth and employment”, Deputy Prime Minister for European Policies Coordination and Institutional Affairs Meglena Kuneva, who represents Bulgaria in the General Affairs Council, said in Brussels on 18 November.

Kuneva pointed out that accession to Schengen was a priority for Bulgaria, as well as receiving a good evaluation under the Mechanism. According to her, the technical findings of the report would not be positive and would reflect the facts of the past year, but that Bulgaria had the opportunity to change the political evaluation in its favor in the coming weeks.

Kuneva classified as immediate tasks the professional and transparent election of a Chairman of the Supreme Court of Cassation by the Supreme Judicial Council, the election of a Chief Judicial Inspector by the National Assembly, as well as a parliamentary consensus on the judicial reform. According to her, achieving these tasks would give a strong sign to European partners for the presence of a political will in Bulgaria and would help to improve the report under the Mechanism. She said that events such as the “notebooks” case and the inability to hold elections of magistrates had a negative impact on reports and could be overcome with concerted effort. “When we show results, sufficient stability and sufficient political will, we can free ourselves from this mechanism hanging over our economy. If we have arguments, I will manage to convince our partners that Bulgaria has achieved enough”, she added.

Kuneva also commented on the new rule of law initiative, which is currently being discussed in the EU and which provides for excluding Member States of the decision making process in the case of systematic violations of this principle. According to Kuneva, such a mechanism would erase the differences between old and new EU Member States and would mobilize them to both transpose and apply EU legislation effectively. The initiative was still at a very early stage of discussions, the Deputy Prime Minister said.