EU formally backs 2007 entry for Romania, Bulgaria

Luxembourg, Oct 17: EU foreign ministers formally endorsed today a recommendation that Romania and Bulgaria join the bloc in January rather than having to wait until 2008.

''The Council ... looks forward to welcoming Bulgaria and Romania as members of the Union on January one 2007,'' a statement approved at the ministers' monthly meeting said.

The move will give the European Union 27 members. The biggest enlargement to date in 2004 saw the admission of eight other former Soviet bloc countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta.

EU ministers urged Sofia and Bucharest to continue reforms and backed a European Commission proposal to check progress in judicial reform, fighting organised crime and corruption and to withhold some EU funds if necessary.

Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu said his reaction to the formal backing was ''a sigh of relief''.

Twenty-one EU member states have ratified the accession treaty for the Black Sea nations and work is well advanced in the four remaining countries, including Germany, diplomats said.

Today's move was a formality. Under the treaty the two states automatically become members in January unless the EU delays their entry by a year due to inadequate preparations.

Brussels delayed a decision earlier this year because of problems with organised crime and corruption in both states and a lack of readiness of systems to administer EU funds.

But after a strenuous last-minute reform push, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn decided the bloc could exercise more leverage by letting the two in under the threat of ''safeguard measures'' to limit their access to EU funds, than by keeping them out for the maximum 12 months provided by the treaty.

Most West European member states, including even Britain which threw its labour market open to workers from the ten newcomers in 2004, are likely to keep their doors closed initially to migrant workers from Bulgaria and Romania.

But Slovakia said at the meeting it would admit them.

Reuters