The main measures of this plan are: complete opening up of labour markets, both private and public, to all European citizens – including Romanians and Bulgarians – “appropriate minimum wages” that will let employees live off their labour, mutual recognition of degrees, and lower labour taxes.

The Commission hopes the most potential lies in the health sectors, services for the elderly, development of a sustainable climate-friendly economy, and in IT, though it remains to be seen whether states will allow interference in their social affairs. The plan will be discussed at the EU summit in June.

Bulgaria’s foreign minister, Nikolai Mladenov, stresses that the two countries have been discussing the territorial delimitation of the Black Sea for over 20 years. "The subject does not constitute any problem in bilateral relations between the two countries," he said, as quoted by the Bulgarian press, which nevertheless expresses "surprise" that the dispute should suddenly crop up.

On the other side of the Danube, this "timing" comes as no surprise to Adevărul -

The part of the continental shelf in dispute is that which is expected to carry the South Stream pipeline [project led by Russia]. If the outcome is favourable for Bucharest, Romania would gain a few square metres of the Turkish continental shelf, which would be an advantage in the event that the Nabucco project [the rival South Stream pipeline, supported by the EU] is decided on.

Romania’s chief diplomat, Cristian Diaconescu, wants to calm things down -

Nobody should get upset or angry. These are areas of national interest for both states, and these issues have to be resolved, because problems of exploitation and concessions may suddenly come up.

According to the report, Bucharest and Sofia have made progress but the fight against corruption at the highest levels of the administration is still sluggish, especially in Romania, the paper notes. The report calls on Romania to make magistrates more accountable and to discourage corruption through the application of exemplary punishments and the confiscation of ill-gotten gains. The CVM also suggests the implementation of a national anti-corruption strategy and the exclusion from parliament of MPs or senators convicted of corruption. In spite of the progress achieved, Romanian Minister of European Affairs, Leonard Orban, told the paper that the Netherlands, the main opponent to the entry of Romania or Bulgaria into the Schengen Area, will not change its position until the CVM presents its final report this summer.

In Bulgaria, the release of the CVM report was overshadowed by reports on the inclement weather and the declaration of a day of national mourning to honnour the eight victims of flooding in the village of Bisser in southern Bulgaria. Nonetheless, on-line news site Medipool says the report is "very critical" of Bulgaria and highlights that, for the first time, there is no mention in the report of Sofia's "political will" to fight corruption and to implement the necessary judicial reforms.

The unrest of the past few days has revived tensions between ethnic Bulgarians and the clan of “King Kiro,” whom they accuse of lording it over Katounitsa, having amassed a considerable fortune by not paying any income tax. He is also accused of enjoying the protection of the police, writes Dnevnik. However, the authorities and the local population are avoiding talk of an “ethnic conflict”. Clashes between youths and police also took place on September 26 in Sofia, adds the newspaper, where a thousand people gathered through a Facebook page devoted to “Death to King Kiro“ were met by police near Parliament.

Beyond the national perspective, however, everything today indicates that Europe has become a kind of labyrinth in which no one recognises his own borders. The external frontiers, the Schengen area, pressed hard on their Greek or Italian flanks, are reinforced on one side with barbed wire (between Greece and Turkey) or with increased sea patrols (in the Mediterranean) – all without any guidelines having been drawn up at European level.

Internal borders, which theoretically are now largely symbolic administrative lines, are in turn subject to manoeuvring that undermines the very principle of free movement throughout the area. Denmark has restored its border controls, ostensibly to fight cross-border crime, and France has done the same to prevent Tunisians from crossing over from Italy. Finally, other borders, these ones political, forced up by domestic issues, are popping up where they were not necessarily expected: in the Netherlands, in Finland and in Denmark, pushed for by Geert Wilders and his party, by the "True Finns", and by the Danish People's Party.  

“I blame Europe and Italy for being asleep, for not being aware of the nationalist and centrifugal forces that are tugging it apart. We have not remembered the lesson from the Balkans: it's enough simply to identify an enemy of the people for a people short of reference points to take it on as truth,” writes the Italian Paolo Rumiz in his book On the Frontiers of Europe (ed. Hoebeke, 2011). He might have added that it risks abandoning part of its soul to wander between these more or less shifting borders, and lose itself. 

The sanction against Lukoil comes at a time of tension in the energy sector between Russia and Bulgaria, two countries that are nonetheless close on this issue, particularly on the question of the payment, by Russia, for the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant and on the progress of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline.

The European Parliament is scheduled to vote on Romania’s and Bulgaria’s inclusion in Schengen in early June, while the final decision of the European Council – which will have to be unanimous – is expected in the autumn. Romania will have to secure "the second longest land border" in the EU, notes the Bucharest daily, which reminds its readers that the initial date for the inclusion of the two countries, 1st March 2011, was postponed when Germany and France exercised a veto.

Regarding the Merkel/Sócrates briefing, Público notes that “with one voice” the two leaders “carefully recited” a speech designed to convince markets as to troubled Portugal’s financial health. Rejecting out of hand that Lisbon needed an IMF bailout or help from the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), Merkel praised the Portuguese PM for "courageous steps to reduce the deficit”, while stressing that structural reforms and austerity budgets “must go further." According to the Lisbon daily, Merkel expressed reservations over Portugal’s request that the European Financial Stability Fund be strengthened in exchange for submitting to the terms of the Franco-German inspired competitiveness pact, due to the “increasing hostility” of German public opinion to help for weak economies.

With the Eurozone 17 finance ministers preparing to meet in Brussels on 11 March to discuss the terms of Sarkozy-Merkel driven plan to harmonise Europe’s tax, labour and pension policies, non-euro member states are feeling sidelined, notes Adevărul.  “Poland is angry because it was not invited to the table,” writes the Bucharest daily, adding that Bulgaria which, has already prepared proposals to amend the Constitution to ensure the stability of public finances, “feels it has done its homework.” Meanwhile, crisis-stricken Romania fears that its future contribution to the EFSF, pencilled in at €2.5 billion, is excessive. Currently calculated according to GDP and population, non-eurozone Romania wants this figure calculated for GDP only, as is the case for Eurozone members. With euro and non-euros members increasingly angry about Merkel’s unilateral handling of the crisis, while Brussels seemingly looks on, President Van Rompuy is currently touring Central and Eastern Europe, to “calm spirits”, the Bucharest daily notes.

In Bulgaria and Romania, the Franco-German veto has prompted surprise and disappointment. Headlining with "France and Germany block Bulgaria’s bid to join  Schengen," the Bulgarian daily Dnevnik notes that the letter has made it clear that "Germany also believes that our country is not ready." Describing Berlin’s move to support the French position on the issue as "surprising,” the newspaper quotes the official response from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "We should redouble our efforts, and that includes efforts in the field of judicial reform, to allay the doubts of some of our partners." The daily also reminds its readers that the inclusion of new countries in the Schengen Area is subject to a unanimous decision by all of Europe’s member states. In Romania, the government deplored what it termed a "discriminatory" attitude towards Romania and Bulgaria, while the press criticised the change of policy in Paris and Berlin. On the issue of "why France and Germany do not want us to join Schengen," Gândul remarks that "instead of getting angry about the refusal to let us in, we should ask why these two countries [France and Germany] approved our entry into the EU" in 2007. The Bucharest daily points out that "corruption was the same then as it is now, and there is no hope that it can be eradicated overnight." In conclusion, Gândul argues that "the real explanation is that the political and economic interests of these large states no longer coincide with those of Romania" – a development which should be blamed on the “failure” of Romanian diplomacy.

In 2007, Latvia was the only country in the EU 27 with a worse showing, while Romania and Bulgaria were on a par with Portugal. At the other extreme, the Nordic countries, Slovenia and Slovakia proved the most egalitarian.

Evenimentul Zilei feels “no-one should be expelled just for being a member of the Roma minority”, whilst Adevărul, in another editorial, bemoans that “France’s example has fuelled racist attitudes in Europe”. The Romanian daily reminds readers that “the Communists tried to control the Roma by building homes for them – in which they were more inclined to keep their horses, as they preferred to sleep under the open sky. Now the French want to send them back to houses they don’t have, owing to their nomadic way of life, and that is what is so outrageous about what France and Europe are doing: trying to change the mindset of an ethnic group living in the modern world according to laws that are frozen in the past. Rational France can do better than that.”

No thanks, France

In Bulgaria, the authorities have been trying since late July to “put the whole matter back into proportion”, even, according to some observers, to “minimise” the significance of these “repatriations”. Their position is facilitated by the near absence of any reaction by official representatives of the country’s Roma community. Prime minister Boïko Borissov himself, as quoted in opposition daily Sega, argues that “at any rate, each of these people bears individual responsibility for what happens to him: there are no mass expulsions”. And in Dnevnik, foreign minister Nikolaï Mladenov insists that the controversy is, above all, “a French domestic affair”.

Most of the Bulgarian press, on the other hand, feel this is a matter that concerns all of Europe, but on which opinions diverge along the East-West divide. Tabloids like Trud and 24 Chasa are amazed at the European Commission’s “comprehension” for the French anti-Roma crusade and wonder whether Brussels would show such leniency if it were Sofia going after the Roma. “If Europe means double standards, count us out. No thanks, France,” their editorialists intone, taking their cue from Trud, while in Sega columnist Svetoslav Terziev accuses France of “organising the biggest official deportation since the end of World War II”. “Dear France,” writes Sega editorialist Boïko Lambovski, “we who bring up the rear of the EU expect you, Europe’s locomotive and the fatherland of human rights, to set an example for us in matters of humanism and integration. But what you are now doing is anything but that.”

And things might well continue at the same pace. Following the summit of the "Big four" European powers set for 6 September – that the Belgian EU presidency threatens to boycott, fearing that its real purpose is to legitimise France's expulsions of the Roma  – there will be a meeting of foreign ministers, who are to discuss, among other topics, the issue of Kosovo (Berlin has suggested to Serbia that they would have an open door into the EU if they recognised Kosovo's autonomy). There is also the (less than inspiring) state of justice in Bulgaria and Romania, both trying to be a part of the Schengen zone. Next up are the referendum on the presidential election in Moldavia (a requisite condition for pursuing negotiations toward an eventual membership in the Schengen area), as well as one on Constitutional reforms in Turkey (ditto), not to mention the legislative elections in Sweden. Which leaves a lot on the plate of the Union's unusually quiet Belgian presidency, whose first hundred days will soon be coming to an end.

Iulia Badea Guéritée