TheSofiaEcho: Bulgaria and Romania on their way to EU accession - by Polina Slavcheva

Bulgaria and Romania on their way to EU accession - by Polina Slavcheva

About eight years ago, when strung together with Romania on the path to European Union accession, Bulgaria was not just unhappy, but disgruntled, and demanded a change in policy: Romania would slow down reform and endanger Bulgaria’s 2007 EU entry, or so it seemed.

Until this year. The European Commission’s (EC) April 3 preliminary report scolded Bulgaria and gave Romania a pat on the back, and justifiably so. Romanian authorities managed to chase down a deputy prime minister, George Copos; an ex-prime minister, Adrian Nastase; and a former economy minister in an impressive corruption hunt-down for which Bulgarian authorities are still studying. What’s more, they opened the archives of the Securitate (Romania’s communist-era secret police), which Bulgaria has not done with its state security in 16 years. And, as some Bulgarian media reported, the neighbour to the north was quicker to sign a contract for joint NATO bases, even though Bulgaria was the traditional leader in the NATO race.