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ILUSTRACIÓN 24 MATRIZ MPC Fuente: Elaboración propia
According to its constitutional framework, Bulgaria is a republic with a parliamentary form of government in which all fundamental principles of constitutional democracy are well established and protected, namely the rule of law, separation of powers, basic human rights, national sovereignty, political pluralism, political
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and legal responsibility of the government, and the independence of the judiciary. In general, the substance of the Constitution is considered to be in line with existing European standards (Venice Commission, 2007).1In the past decade some of the shortcomings in the functioning of key institutions (the judiciary) were highlighted and constitutional reforms have been undertaken to fix the existing problems (Venice Commission, 2015). These reformist policies, however, were often blocked by the entrenched organised interests of certain political and oligarchic elites.
In the meantime, it became evident that the prevailing assumption that existing deficiencies could be fixed through committed reformist endeavours undertaken by the national political elite, aided by their European counterparts, is rather mistaken. This positivist assumption is challenged in at least two ways. First, the basic values, principles and procedures of constitutional democracy are often undermined or openly violated by powerful domestic institutional and political actors. This situation is rather habitual, not accidental. Second,deficiencies and loopholes in the legislation or institutional performance are often intended and purposeful, not a side effect of a rapid top-down Europeanisation process.
More than a decade after the EU accession, Bulgaria’s constitutional democracy remains defective (Merkel, 2004) and semi-consolidated (Nations in Transit, 2018). Almost three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bulgarian democracy is weakened not only by the burden of its post-communist legacy – there are still parallel power networks from former communist secret services and their oligarchic offshoots, but also due to persistent and systematic actions to impede, curb or dismantle the functioning of democratic or independent institutions (Ganev, 2007: 123-150) that keep government and politicians accountable. This state of affairs is most visible in the lack of proper independence of the judiciary, as well as the reported inefficiency at combating high-level corruption.
1Full reference details are given in bibliography at the end of the paper.
The basic values, principles and procedures
of constitutional democracy are undermined or openly
violated by powerful domestic institutional
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In recent years the conditions for a pluralist democratic government in the country were limited by an overall decrease of media freedom. According to the Nations in Transit 2018report:
Bulgaria’s media environment has deteriorated significantly in recent years, with an increase in hate speech and violence against journalists. Transparency of media ownership continued to be a serious problem, as was the fusion of media and politics, media monopolies, and lack of transparency of funding sources. Local government has been struggling with debt and dependence on central funding, which limited local independence and initiatives throughout the year.
This critical account is corroborated by a continuous decline of the country’s performance in the World Press Freedom Index. The 2019 Index ranks Bulgaria 111th (out of 180) for the second consecutive year, which is a significant drop in the past six years (down from 87th in 2013). The conclusion of the report dampens Bulgaria’s ambition to be a regional leader:
Corruption and collusion between media, politicians and oligarchs is widespread in Bulgaria. The most notorious embodiment of this aberrant state of affairs is Delyan Peevski... The government continues to allocate EU funding to media outlets with a complete lack of transparency, with the effect of bribing recipients to go easy on the government in their reporting, or to refrain from covering certain problematic stories altogether. At the same time judicial harassment of independent media, such as the Economedia group, has increased. Threats against reporters have also increased in recent months, to the extent that journalism is now dangerous in Bulgaria (2019 World Press Freedom Index).
Lacking true media pluralism, disregarding truth and objectivity, increasing the use of political propaganda through major media outlets all pose a threat to democracy in this country.
According to the 2019 Rule of Law Index,with its overall score (of 0.54) Bulgaria is the last among the EU member states and ranks 54th globally (among 126 studied countries). It is noteworthy that this result is even worse than some non-European states (Botswana ranks 44th, Argentina 46th, while Mongolia is 53st in the world). In
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the CEE region it is closer to Hungary (57th), Bosnia and Herzegovina (60th) and North Macedonia (56th).
The fragility of the democratic order in Bulgaria should be taken seriously, given that the whole region of Central and Southeastern Europe has suffered a continuous decline of democracy and the rule of law in the last decade (Freedom in the World 2018). Even more alarming, a leading EU scholar suggests that party politics at the EU level is only worsening the situation:
In short, democratic leaders at the federal or union level may overlook concerns about the authoritarian nature of rule in member states so long as the local authoritarian delivers needed votes to their coalition in the federal legislature…Thus, enhancing partisan, democratic politics at the federal level may end up perpetuating autocracy at the state level (Kelemen, 2017: 216).
Similar critical conclusions could be reached about the existing mechanisms of redistribution of EU funds to less economically developed member states; such fiscal transfers tend to create a large clientelist base in support of local authoritarian leaders (Kelemen, 2017: 216).
The decline of democratic and rule of law standards is a phenomenon not only in Bulgaria and Southeast Europe but also in member states that were once regional leaders in democratic consolidation (Poland and Hungary). These two countries are at the sharp end of EU procedures to safeguard the rule of law and the democratic values of the Union, which may lead to suspension of their voting rights in the Council of the EU according to Art. 7 TEU (Rule of Law, 2017; European Parliament Resolution, 2018).
With Eurosceptic parties in the governing coalition, inconsistent government policies with respect to the EU agenda, a poor legislative process that undermines the constitutional protection of rights in favour of strong lobbies and oligarchs, Bulgaria’s performance is rather weak. The country is not prepared to take part in the hard choices to be made in the new five-year European institutional term.
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