This is apparently implied in a draft of the report the EC will publish Wednesday, obtained by the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR).
“In the summer of next year, exactly five years after the release of the first monitoring report on problem areas such as organized crime and judicial reform, a comprehensive assessment of the achievements in this period will be made, to be followed by a proposal for the lifting of the mechanism,” says the draft report.
“For this to happen Brussels will demand that Bulgaria and Romania implement the recommendations of this year’s reports and overcome the red flag areas,” says the BNR, cited by Novinite.com
Although the two states’ accession to the Schengen Area is conditioned by this monitoring, although it is technically completely unrelated, the EC’s report makes no mention of it, according to the BNR.