The bulgarian government adopted a work-schedule of urgent measures updating the action plan in the field of judicial reform, fight against corruption and organized crime

The Council of Ministers approved a work-schedule of urgent measures and actions designed to update the Action Plan on progress indicators in the field of judicial reform, fight against corruption and organized crime for the August-December 2008 period, BNR announced.

It consists of 80 measures and aims at overcoming the faults identified and criticism addressed to our country in the Annual Report of the European Commission to the European Parliament on Bulgaria's progress in line with EU's cooperation and verification mechanism. The document sets out actions designed to reinforce the accountability, transparency and efficiency of all judicial system units. There are also upcoming measures ensuring the coherence of jurisprudence, proactive actions by the Supreme Judicial Council and greater publicity of the work done, the government press release says.

 These measures have been previously agreed with the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Judicial Council. Another group of measures is designed to establish and improve the legal framework of the new Bulgarian policy in the field of criminal law. Specific measures are planned as well in terms of realization of the reform in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), as well as such aimed at enhancing the cooperation between the State Agency for National Security, the Prosecutor's Office and MIA.

In relation to the high-level corruption, the document involves measures which should lead to the overall reformulation of the mandate and working model of the Committee on Prevention and Counteraction to Corruption at the Council of Ministers. The schedule also provides for actions addressing the criticism over political parties' funding and alleged "purchasing of votes" during elections. There is also upcoming detailization of the regulation which sets out obligations for banks to inform the Bulgarian National Bank and SANS about bank transactions amounting to over BGN 30 000 which is expected to have a substantial effect in terms of counteraction to organized crime and money laundering.