But not giving money for programs and explaining that the governments are at fault puts the real burden squarely where it belongs...on governments and state administrations that have done too little, too slowly, and too sporatically. The populations of both states know that there are still real problems, so this external validation and external pressure will be welcomed by the broad public.

In addition to witholding money, the other sanction (for Bulgaria) could be the decision to not recognize Bulgarian judicial decisions...certainly an embarrassment to the entire Bulgarian judicial system since it basically says that "we don't trust your decisions." While the country's chief prosecutor (I'm quite impressed with him by the way) has expressed concerns with this tactic, I have to disagree. This, too, is a wise decision.

I've mentioned this before in comments elsewhere, but I'll say it again. There is a common perception of widespread corruption among judges and prosecutors. There is some corruption (as evidenced by recent arrests), but this is not really as large of a problem as is popularly believed. Instead, from interactions with friends and acquaintances in the system, I would argue that there are two major problems to the judicial system.

First, there are problems with existing laws that govern judicial proceedings. Amazingly enough, judges are not in control of their own calendars. If you are ever arrested in Bulgaria and you want to stretch out the trial till the end of time, then all you have to do is hire a 3-4 lawyers to represent you instead of just one. Under existing law, if one of those lawyers cannot make a particular court date due to other court appearances, official work, or sickness, the trial cannot go forward and another date must be held. So what happens is that anyone rich enough to hire several lawyers simply drags out the trial for three, four, five or more years. Judges are left to act like secretaries at the end of a given session as they negotiate with the defendent's lawyers for a suitable next court date. This is a well known problem amongst legal experts, but parliament (perhaps for personal reasons) have done nothing about this.

The second difficulty of the Bulgarian judicial system lies in a judicial culture at the upper levels that seems unwilling to apply common reason to decisions and, instead, applies an overly attentive reading to small details of law. While some recent changes may somewhat change this, I'm not sure that they will sufficiently deal with this aspect of the problem. Perhaps this shaming of the judicial system will have a welcome effect. What it potentially does is make Bulgarian civil lawyers lose business since many private businesses will want to have their contracts and decisions legally recognized throughout the EU. Until Bulgarian court decisions are recognized throughout the EU, a Bulgarian businessman will be better off going to do some things in the nearby Greek or Romanian courts where the decisions will be recognized throughout the EU, than to try to wade through the Bulgarian system.

This is a long and detailed diary, I know, but I just thought that I should give credit where credit is due. Good work, Olli and good work Commission.