By Michael Sidwell

“We have to play by the book and respect the rules of financial management. Therefore there is, for the moment, no other option,” said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn (Agence France-Presse, AFP).

In response to the news, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Plugchieva said, “I am deeply disappointed, I think (the decision) is extremely unfair,” reports the Guardian. She also noted that: “The Bulgarian authorities will nevertheless continue working at the same accelerated rates and strictly implement the European rules and procedures to guarantee the correct and transparent use of all European funds,” according to AFP.

Ivo Kostov, a Sofia-based consultant, told the Financial Times that the measure is a “blow to the government’s credibility as well as a serious loss to the economy at a time when banks are cutting back on lending.”

The BBC recalls how in July, “the commission froze more than 500m euros [US $636 million] in aid to Bulgaria, one of its newest and poorest members, following a scathing EU report.”

“Bulgaria responded to Brussels’ criticism in October by setting up a special unit of prosecutors to investigate mismanagement of EU money. It also passed the country’s first conflict-of-interest law and drew up an action plan,” details AFP.

However, most of these measures are “only a promise of future action, and have not yet been delivered,” said commission enlargement spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy, according to Deutsche Welle.

The BBC writes that the move is intended to show that “the European Commission is not squandering taxpayers’ money, and to warn new and potential EU members that they have to crack down on entrenched corruption.”

Looking to the future, AFP notes that “Sofia’s continued failure to come up to scratch could also jeopardise some of the 11 billon euros [US $14 billion] in funds earmarked to be handed to Bulgaria by 2013.”

By Michael Sidwell

The government announced the findings on 27 November as part of a report on the first 100 days of Mexican President Calderon’s “Operation Cleanup”, an anti-crime initiative.

The tests, which aimed to “root out corrupt, incompetent and unfit officers”, involved “lie detectors, drug tests, psychological profiling and tests of personal wealth”, reports AP.

In addition to revealing corruption at the federal level, Operation Cleanup also discovered “widespread corruption on the state government level and wherever drug cartels operate,” details Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Earlier in November, the chief of Mexico’s organised crime unit, Noé Ramírez Mandujano, was arrested and accused of accepting bribes from a drug cartel, writes The New York Times. According to the same article, “six other high-ranking officials have been charged in the investigation” and “the current and former directors of Interpol’s Mexico office have also been arrested.”

In an interview with the Financial Times, Gustavo Madero, Mexico’s Senate President, said that “nobody should be surprised by the extent to which drugs cartels have managed to permeate the upper echelons of the country’s security forces.” Adding that the drug gangs have been “around for decades.”

“To win the war on crime we need honest and trustworthy police departments. That’s why we must continue to purge and strengthen all the police forces in the country,” said Calderon (AFP).

However, The Economistraises the concern that the army, which has been temporarily deployed while more police were recruited and trained, is being corrupted. Guillermo Zepeda of CIDAC, a Mexican think-tank, told the newspaper: “We may end up without a trustworthy police and without a trustworthy army.”

On 28 November, the Mexican Security Council released a poll that claims “87 percent of crimes went unreported, indicating public distrust of the police and justice system,” according to AFP.

By Michael Sidwell

According to Associated Press (AP), Johannes Feldmayer, a former Siemens board member, was sentenced to “two years probation and fined euro 229,000 ($291,000) for breach of trust and tax evasion.” Wilhelm Schelsky, the former head of the independent AUB labour organisation, received a prison sentence of “four-and-a-half years for charges of aiding breach of trust with fraud and tax evasion.”

The Financial Times writes that the trial “shed a light on how some of Siemens’ former managers tried to break the power of IG Metall, Germany’s most powerful labour union, by secretly financing AUB.” According to the same article, AUB helped Siemens to “wrest concessions from employees on pay and working hours for different factories in the 1990s.”

“Prosecutors had sought a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for Feldmayer and six years for Schelsky. They will decide whether to appeal after analyzing the ruling,” reports International Herald Tribune. Lawyers for Feldmayer and Schelsky said they would appeal the verdict.

Siemens Chief Executive Peter Loescher apologised to IG Metall and appealed to Siemens’ managers to recognise the lessons in Feldmayer’s case, writes AP.

The court decision, reports Deutsche Welle, “comes in the wake of a wider two-year scandal over corruption and kickbacks at Siemens that has rocked the 160-year-old company. The allegations of corruption have already led to several resignations among top management, including former chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld.”

Three former Siemens executives have been sentenced to suspended prison terms so far, but no board members to date, according to Wall Street Journal. The same article notes that several other countries are investigating alleged bribery by Siemens, which recently set aside “€1 billion [US $1.3 billion] for expected fines.”