T K Vogel — research & analysis

Last month, a European Commission investigator just back from Bulgaria complained that law-enforcement officials there showed a–please excuse his French–”kiss-my-a- attitude” toward crime fighting. The authorities slacked in catching mobsters and human traffickers because “they believed they would get into the EU anyway,” Klaus Jansen told reporters. The next day, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn spoke to an increasingly enlargement-skeptical European Parliament, criticizing Bulgaria’s lack of judiciary reform and failure to effectively fight organized crime and money laundering. As if to underscore the point, a senior Bulgarian official was suspended Wednesday over embezzlement charges concerning European Union funds. Just hours later, a businessman of the sort commonly described as “controversial” was gunned down in the center of the capital Sofia.