Today a letter was submitted in the EC Representative Office in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is addressed to the European Ombudsman and the Commission itself, and it’s a complaint. This complaint ends with a disturbingly long list of scandalous cases of destruction and outrages against some of the most valuable pieces of wild nature in Bulgaria. So? – You are going to say – Europe is a clumsy machine anyway… it takes a while before it starts stirring. Yes, but No. The mentioned cases have long ago went over any administrative deadline for response or any average time for a complaint to be worked on. And we are talking about a catastrophe here in Bulgaria.
As it became clear after the visit of our Petitioners in Brussels [see Genady’s blog], things are indeed quite fishy. And all the traces lead up towards one Bulgarian expert in The Commission – Lubomila Popova – whose name is been articulated for months on the issue with the delayed responses and the very uniform answers if any are given. Things like “We need more evidence.” (like pictures, plans and documents from companies, State and municipalities are not enough and are a fiction of the environmentalists) or just demanding more and more useless details that only provide the investors with more time for their anyway quick reaction. Even worse – the case of Irakli was closed down and then reopened by the Commission after new protests and renewed complaints of environmentalists.
The advice of the European Parliament towards our petitioners have been just the same – to write immediately to the European Ombudsman and the Commission.
And that’s what we did now. Today Andrey Kovachev, co-chairman ot The Greens submitted the consecutive complaint to the Representative Office of the European Commission in Sofia, and this time we know it will not remain without reaction. And so that we don’t get blamed for becoming boring paper guys Dobri, Gaby, Ivo and I again entertained the journalists and the policemen present. I hope you’re all gonna like the pictures!
And the moral of the story: Well, the lesson is actually a tendency – We keep on relying on the European Institutions, but we ever more begin to rely on ourselves. Bulgaria has to find inner strength to overcome the mafiocracy. Because as I often say – Brussels is not Moscow and can’t enter Sofia with the tanks to set the rules.
Genady Kondarev