SE Countries in EU

EC chief defends decision, saying Dacian Ciolos was the most qualified for the job. Bucharest welcomes the nomination as important achievement for the country.

Romania’s former agriculture minister Dacian Ciolos was nominated on Friday for the agriculture commissioner post by European Commission chief Jose Manuel Durrao Barroso, in a surprising move praised by Bucharest and several European officials.

The European Commission has unblocked part of hundreds of millions of euros in EU funding for Bulgaria under PHARE program, which were suspended last year for the country's failure to adequately tackle corruption.

This emerges from a letter from the European Commission Enlargement Directorate to Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov.

Bulgaria has been allowed to fund, through its own budget for the time being, projects under PHARE pre-accession program, concluded by July 2008, when the European Commission barred two agencies from handling PHARE money.

2009 is the first of the last 7 years when no progress was scored in the fight against corruption, Transparency International Romania head Victor Alistar announced yesterday, at the launching event of the annual report “Corruption Perception Index.&

According to the Corruption Perception Index, Romania got 3.8 points out of 10, which places it at the same level as the previous year. The index ranges between 1 and 10, and the higher the score, the less bad opinions are registered about corruption existing in a country. “Romania returns to the last place among European Union states, a place it disputes with Bulgaria and Greece. While Bulgaria obtains the same score as Romania, following an increase by 0.2 points, Greece reached it after it lost 0.9 points compared to 2008,” Alistar told a press conference.