Country: Bulgaria

Promoting transparency in the financing of political parties in Bulgaria I

The aim of the project is to increase the public awareness regarding the transparency of the political parties’ financing in the country through: 1. Realization of educational seminars and workshops; 2. Development of practical guidelines aimed at increasing the transparency in the financing of the political parties in the country; 3. Development and publication of a special TI index on the matter.

Typology of the corruption practices in higher education in Bulgaria and a strategy for counteraction

The project aimed to develop a typology of the various forms of corrupt activities in the higher education, to analyze reasons and systems proposals for institutional change. Some of its main activities include: 1. national representative polls of the universities and focus group discussions with the stakeholders in the educational system; 2. Work groups on the social roots of the various types and forms for corruption practices in the higher education; 3. preparation of a final report and recommendations for increasing the transparency in the higher education and combating the corruptive practices.

Institutional reaction to cases of corruption in Bulgaria

The main purpose of the project was to study the reaction of different institutions and players, who have an attitude to the problem with the corruption, such as media, the political actors, the government, the judicial system, the no- government sector, and the public at large. The project involved the creation of the task-force of experts, investigative journalists, and politicians which monitored and discussed institutional reaction to a number of cases of corruption during a period of ten months in Bulgaria. The “task-force”” organized four round tables discussion with the participation of legislators, heads of administrative agencies, NGOs and journalists.”

Local initiative for transparency of the administration and governance on the territory of Yambol municipality

The project aimed to increase the transparency of the local administration of Yambol’s municipality by improving the access to information for the citizens and the business regarding the governance priorities in the region.

The project activities included:

1. needs assessment of the civil society structures with regard to the governance priorities in the region;

2. development of mechanisms for better information dissemination regarding the work of the regional and local authorities.

Encouraging the effectiveness, efficient functioning and independence of the prosecutor’s office

The project objectives are: Identifying and formulating international standards and norms in regard to the prosecutor’s office. This includes the following: 1. operative standards by which the effectiveness of the prosecutor’s office can be judged; 2. standards regarding ethics and human rights by which the activities of the prosecutor’s office can be judged; 3. employing the existing mechanisms for ensuring the independence, efficient functioning and effectiveness of the prosecutor’s office, as well as finding out the best practices; 4. promoting debates about the need to reform the prosecutor’s office in Bulgaria and seeking methods for its better organization, effectiveness and efficient functioning; 5. turning the research into a reliable tool for making reforms. The tool itself should serve before the institutions which have tendencies towards reform and thus promote the debate concerning the prosecutor’s office in the countries which urgently need such changes.

Building capacity of the National Prosecution Office in the context of curbing corruption

The project aimed to support the National Prosecution Office when identifying the actual problems in the fight against corruption in view of improving the existing procedural rules, and identifying an effective model for increasing the transparency and efficiency in the investigation of cases of corruption. The main project objectives were: 1. to identify the actual problems of the Prosecution office which hinder it from successful counteraction of corruption; 2. to provide analytical (legal and sociological) research on the matter; 3. to initiate an on-going debate in order to make the prosecutors speak about their actual problems; 4. to suggest working mechanisms for effective implementation of the anti-corruption legislation when prosecuting crimes of bribery, trading in influence, bribery in the private sector or bribing of foreign officials; 5. to introduce foreign experience in achieving transparency in the Prosecution Office’s work and to increase the level of efficiency in investigating corruption; 6. to encourage the cooperation between the National Prosecution Office, on the one hand, and civil society and the media on the other.

Promoting transparency in the financing of political parties in Bulgaria II

The aim of the project was to increase the public awareness regarding the transparency of the political parties’ financing in the country as well as to offer mechanisms for improvement. The outputs of the project were: 1. the identification of legal deficiencies with regard to the financing of political parties; 2. development of mechanisms for monitoring of the financing processes; 3. activities for involvement of the civil society in the monitoring process as well as the enchantment of the dialogue between the state institutions and the civil society organizations.

Is East-Central Europe Backsliding? EU Accession Is No “End of History”

In the textbooks on democratic transition, Central and Eastern Europe provides the model of success. Yet in Brussels concern over the politics of the new EU members has been mounting. The day after accession, when conditionality has faded, the influence of the EU vanished like a short-term anesthetic. Political parties needed to behave during accession in order to reach this highly popular objective, but once freed from these constraints, they returned to their usual ways. Now we see Central and Eastern Europe as it really is—a region that has come far but still has a way to go.

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