ABSTRACT
Introduction Corruption has been an important buzzword in the EU enlargement process. Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 and therefore are the only countries of the BSR that underwent the whole accession process. The accession has always been considered as a compromise between countries that supported the membership of Romania and Bulgaria for political reasons and those that feared that the accession conditions were not fulfilled sufficiently (Papadimitriou & Gateva, 2009, p. 161). Both countries still undergo the cooperation and verification mechanism (CVM) introduced by the European Commission (EC) as a consequence of concerns over the preparedness of these countries. One central criterion is the quality of the judicial system. Even though the fight against corruption is not explicitly mentioned in the benchmarks of the CVM, the annual (or biannual) reports have shown that the EC pays close attention to the development in this field in Romania. Less reflected is the EU’s dilemma that a sound anti-corruption framework for all its member states is still weak. It comes as no surprise that the relevance of anti-corruption policies was underestimated for a long time and gained importance only in the late 1990s, still focusing on developing countries (Böckmann, 2011). In the case of Romania, most observers agree to the fact that the strong pressure exercised by the EU and the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe (CoE) has brought about important changes concerning anti-corruption laws (Olteanu, 2011). Furthermore, analysts and legal practitioners in Romania stress that since 2004, not only has the legal basis been improved but also the independence of judicial bodies. Moreover merit-based career paths for lawyers and judges, competitive examinations and an influx of young professionals brought about changes in professional ethics (Adevărul, 2014; Danileţ, 2014). Only with the EU accession process, formal rules within the judiciary could gain more independence. While this holds true for Romania, the results are different for Bulgaria.
