No-confidence vote in Bulgarian government takes place today

BULGARIA:THE PARLIAMENT of Bulgaria will hold a vote of no-confidence in the government today, amid a spate of lurid murders, allegations of high-level corruption and the release of a report that suggests drug-trafficking through the country helps to fund radical Islamic groups.

The government's majority in parliament is likely to ensure that it survives the vote, but the European Union is also putting pressure on Bulgaria to fulfil promises it made when joining the bloc in 2007 to crack down on organised crime and pervasive graft.

The no-confidence motion was called by the opposition after a senior anti-corruption investigator and a former top interior ministry official were arrested and charged with passing vital information to crime suspects. Interior minister Rumen Petkov has also been urged to resign by critics who were appalled by his admission that he had contact with powerful organised crime figures.

"The government has to go, as it turned its interior ministry into the link connecting power and organised crime," independent deputy Lachezar Ivanov said during yesterday's debate on the motion.

Plamen Panayotov, another opposition MP, berated prime minister Sergei Stanishev for failing to sack Mr Petkov and for supporting his ideas on reforming his ministry.

"You cannot conduct operation 'clean hands' when one of the hands is busy shaking hands with criminals and the other is pocketing its share of their unlawful business," he said.

The EU has demanded a swift response to the murder of two more prominent figures this week: Georgy Stoev, a well-known writer of books on the Bulgarian Mafia, and Borislav Georgiev, chief executive of a firm that maintains nuclear reactors. Both were shot in the head by unknown assailants.

"Urgent action is required in the area of fighting organised crime in Bulgaria," said European Commission spokesman Mark Gray. "The killings are not just another statistic. Unfortunately, these shootings have continued to take place on a regular basis over the last couple of years and without successful prosecution."

Bulgaria has witnessed more than 150 gangland murders since 2001. No one has been convicted of the killings and no senior officials have been charged with graft.

The country will come under further scrutiny with the release of a report by a parliamentary security commission which claims that some profits from drugs smuggled west through Bulgaria are helping fund militant groups such as Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad.