EU Urges Bulgaria To Speed Up Justice Reforms

`We want Bulgaria to have a judicial system which is efficient enough...to combat organised crime and corruption,` Barrot said.

Bulgaria's judicial system is still not doing enough to put corrupt officials and crime bosses behind bars and requires deeper reforms, European Union Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said on Tuesday.

"We want Bulgaria to have a judicial system which is efficient enough...to combat organised crime and corruption," Barrot told a news conference during a trip to Sofia.

Last year, the EU punished its poorest member nation for failing to tackle rampant corruption and crime by suspending 220 million euros ($285.5 million) in aid.

Despite numerous pledges to speed up reforms and produce results, Bulgaria has failed to convict a single senior official of corruption and has jailed only one crime boss.

Transparency International, a global advocacy network which campaigns for clean government, last year portrayed the Black Sea country as the EU's most corrupt nation.

Barrot said many trials had been postponed for years and few were completed. The penal code, dating from the pre-1989 communist era, needs to be amended, he said.

"There must be heavy convictions of criminals who discredit the security and the image of your country," Barrot said.

The country may lose more EU funds because deeper reforms ahead of this summer's parliamentary election are unlikely, observers and diplomats say.

They say the root of the problem lies in links between politicians, magistrates and criminal groups, some of which sprang out of the communist-era secret police. The EU's executive Commission will publish a report on Bulgaria's progress in judicial reforms in February.