Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
One of the more visible civil society actors,
Ekoglasnost
took a lead in
pressing for greater change as reform accelerated in the Soviet Union and
elsewhere in Eastern Europe, while Zhivkov's regime remained entrenched
in its ways. Regime change came to Bulgaria in 1989 by means of an
internal coup led by the Foreign Minister Petr Mladenov, a more reform-
ist communist, on November 10, the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The ruling party quickly arranged elections for June 1990, despite
protests by the opposition that there was not enough time to organize
and campaign. The elections gave the newly renamed Bulgarian Socialist
Party (BSP) a slight edge. The postcommunists were not able to maintain
a stable government in the face of protests and strikes, and by the end
of the year the BSP formed a government of national unity with the
opposition groups gathered under the Union of Democratic Forces.
The political transition in Bulgaria was prolonged by the fact that the
old regime was brought down by an insider, by the relative balance
between the former communists and the opposition for the fi rst decade
of postcommunist rule, and by a period of grand coalition. At the same
time, the economic transition led to the rapid growth of private businesses
and privatization processes that were not at all even or transparent. The
liberalization of the economy was prolonged by internal politics and the
geographic misfortune of being east of the Yugoslav wars of succession
and the economic blockade on Serbia. Partial liberalization tends to
intertwine the state and new private sector, creating incentives and
opportunities for entrepreneurs and certain state actors to stall further
reforms and the establishment of a clear rule of law in the economy
(Hellman 1998; Barnes 2007; Tzvetkova 2008). For Bulgaria, the result
of these political and economic trajectories has been a set of tight relation-
ships between certain business and fi nancial circles and specifi c political
parties (Ganev 2006; Konstadinova 2007). Despite a consistent string of
multiparty elections and constitutional, institutional, and legal reforms,
these relationships remain strong and they limit the autonomy of govern-
mental institutions, transparency and accountability, and the rule of law
(Engelbrekt 2007; Barnes 2007; Ganev 2006; Schönfelder 2005).
Compared with other postcommunist and semideveloped countries,
Bulgaria's accession to the European Union makes it one of the set of
countries
more
likely to have developed the institutional and legal frame-
work necessary to ensure public participation in decision making regard-
ing environmentally sensitive projects and, more generally, the rule of
law. In the EU accession process, prospective members must adopt EU
law, including environmental standards and participatory procedures,
