(Bloomberg) -- Bulgaria’s new prime minister criticized the nation’s prosecutors for dragging their feet on tackling graft, advancing a pledge to fight the problem in the European Union’s most corrupt member state.

Premier Kiril Petkov, who won November elections promising “zero tolerance for corruption,” provided a list of 19 people he said “are potentially involved in wrongful activities” along with investigative media reports outlining alleged misdeeds. 

Petkov was summoned as a witness on Wednesday after he accused Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev for not doing enough to look into high-profile crimes. They include financial and other infractions over the past decade that media have often covered with significant detail but that remain unsolved.

“Neither Bulgarian society nor the Bulgarian government is happy with the results that the prosecutor’s office has achieved,” Petkov told reporters after the meeting.

Corruption, the lack of rule of law, and the intersection of organized crime with politics have for years plagued Bulgaria, hindering investment and economic growth and fueling a population exodus that has made the Balkan state one of the world’s fastest-shrinking countries.

Over the past 20 years, dozens of high-ranking political officials and businessmen have been investigated and charged for a wide array of crimes, including scores of contract killings, but none has gone to jail. The European Commission put Bulgaria under a special monitoring mechanism when it joined the bloc in 2007, and a lack of progress has kept Bulgaria out of the passport-free Schengen zone. 

Petkov’s election victory followed mass protests that started in 2020 in which Bulgarians called for Geshev and then-Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who ran the country for more than a decade, to resign over alleged links with organized crime. Both Borissov and Geshev have repeatedly denied the accusations.

Among the people on Petkov’s list was Delyan Peevski, a lawmaker and former media mogul considered Bulgaria’s richest politician, who along with other officials and a billionaire gambling boss was sanctioned last year by the U.S. for corruption.

Peevski said Tuesday he has appealed the sanctions. In a statement, he said repeated inquiries into his activities have proved nothing because he had done “nothing wrong.”

Petkov has also urged Geshev to advance an inquiry over photos from Borissov’s bedroom published last year, showing gold bars and wads of cash along with a gun on his nightstand. Borissov, who has repeatedly said that the photos were a setup, was questioned by police last month. 

Petkov’s justice minister, Nadezhda Yordanova, said Tuesday she’ll start proceedings to request Geshev’s dismissal. But the decision depends on the country’s top judicial body, where a majority has repeatedly supported the top prosecutor. 

Geshev said the justice and interior ministries are “at war” with his office and he had “concerns for the rule of law.”

“I hope this is not some kind of personal political vendetta,” Geshev told the public BTA newswire on Tuesday.

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