BTA: a summary of my article

Sofia, Wednesday, June 3, 2015, No.124

The Reform Package: What's It All About, and What Can Trip it Up

Sofia - In an analysis contributed to http://kultura.bg, Daniel Smilov, Programme Director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies, overviews the reforms that the incumbent Government and parliamentary majority are launching in five spheres and the potential stumbling blocks to their

success.

In the judicial system, the essence of finalized proposals to amend the Constitution and the Judicial System Act is to divide the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) into two chambers which, according to the analyst, will be used as an institutional occasion to optimize the operation of that key

body so that it could start exercising genuine control and hold magistrates at the highest level responsible for failures in their work. The changes will make it possible to remove from

office the presidents of the two supreme courts and the prosecutor general. Most probably, it will be

proposed to empower Parliament to impeach the prosecutor general, with the SJC keeping the final say. In the drive against corruption, a new body is to be set up to control the integrity of politicians and civil servants and all high-level public appointments. The scope of controlled officials will be broadened, and the control authorities will be vested with powers to detect discrepancies between

declared income and actual property status and to take appropriate action. "Regrettably, the  anticorruption strategy does not introduce an independent prosecution service and leaves all key decisions about penal policy in the hands of the prosecutor general. In this sense, to be successful, countercorruption policy depends on the success of the judicial reform, in particular regarding

the prosecuting magistracy and its responsibility," Smilov writes.

In health care, the underlying idea is to end the 'fiefdomization' of separate elements of medical treatment that are lucrative for hospitals. As a result of this fiefdomization, more resources are spent on certain activities while other are systematically neglected. After the reform, healthinsured

patients are supposed to get comprehensive information on all phases of their treatment. To this

end, hospitals have to be consolidated and their management centralized which, in addition to saving administrative costs, should also improve management efficiency. As another part of the reform, services will be split into two packages so as to ease pressure on the system by introducing a waiting list for certain diseases. Those who do not wish to wait will be able to receive treatment promptly by providing additional financing to health care. "In this sense, the reform presupposes a voluntary

increase of the health insurance contributions of the well-to-do," the author concludes.

In the pension reform, agreement has been reached on a gradual increase of retirement insurance

contributions and of the vesting age. "The approval of the reform by trade unions and employers is

its political advantage, but this approval was achieved at the cost of concessions for certain groups

(miners, Interior Ministry personnel, etc.), which are against the public interest," Smilov notes.

In education, the ideas are less clear, but the differentiation of universities' financing according to the

quality of teaching and research is undoubtedly positive. "The introduction of more structured vocational training at high-school level is also a good idea in principle, considering the high youth unemployment and the lack of occupational skills in certain social groups," the analyst finds.

He identifies three major groups of obstacles which may trip the reform effort. The author starts

this list with the Corpbank failure, describing it as a "huge institutional failure" of banking and financial regulators, services and prosecutors. "The reforms cannot succeed if they turn into a fig leaf for these bodies, into a sort of amnesty for them. In more general terms, if the Corpbank scandal is swept under the carpet, most of the above-mentioned reforms will become valueless," Smilov argues.

In his opinion, the tensions within the ruling coalition may prove another stumbling block. If the Reformist Bloc fails (or is rather 'failed') in their remits: judiciary, anti-corruption, health care and

education, "this will certainly be interpreted as an argument for their ouster from power and replacement by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), either openly or through floating majorities," the analyst warns. "To many, above all an enormous part of the media

(miraculously owned by a single person without actually being his), this is a coveted scenario and they

are actively working for it," the author writes, apparently referring to MRF MP and alleged media

mogul Delyan Peevski. "Such political scenario is actually impossible because it will be suicidal for

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov," the political scientist notes. He singles out the concept that

whatever is done will be better than nothing at all as the most serious risk to the reform package.

"That is to say, stir a stew of a little judicial reform and some social reform, add a pinch of health reform to spice the meal, a little something in education, and finish with a spoonful of anti-corruption.

The other two stumbling blocks are purely political: both Corpbank and the coalition tricks are a matter of political will. The third stumbling block is more intricate because, apart from the political will, it also depends on the administrative ability and competence of the government

team," Smilov points out. "Reforms require a complex fitting in of numerous details, a lot of patience

and concentration. For instance, much depends on how long the waiting period for treatment will

be, how exactly hospitals will be consolidated, who will head the single anti-corruption body, and so on and so forth. Fragmenting the efforts, piecemealing the results, botching up

the details can also torpedo the reform, moreover from within," the author concludes.