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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Romania and Bulgaria will join the European Union in January 2007 as we predicted earlier. This membership however will include several caveats. Further EU enlargements after these countries join the union may be postponed until the organization finds ways to reform itself. This leaves parts of the Balkans and Turkey and any post-Soviet republic outside the Baltic and west of Russia without clear external orientation for development.

The European Commission announced it would recommend Romania and Bulgaria to become 26th and 27th EU members. The European Council should take official decision on this issue later this year. Based on the good old tradition not to challenge Commissions' recommendations on such important issues we may expect that these two countries will indeed join the union some months from now. EU had two main options regarding these two countries, to postpone their membership by one year, or to accept their membership under more strict conditions than any other former member. Brussels opted for the second solution.

Bucharest and Sofia will join the EU, but most of the financial package they expect from Brussels will be conditioned upon their progress in several fields, e.g. fight against administrative corruption, and fight against organized crime. Further reforms will be needed in order to unleash financial aid for agriculture and infrastructure projects. Briefly, these countries will have to struggle to get what some other countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal got from the very beginning of their EU membership no questions asked.

The new enlargement comes with barely hidden warning that it may be the last in a row for quite some time to come. Nobody tells what will come with countries like Croatia or Turkey that have already started their negotiations for membership. Other Balkan countries are getting closer to starting such negotiations. Some post-Soviet republics are looking for opportunities for joining the party. Telling all them that the next enlargement will have to wait until EU gets reformed given the impossibility to go with this reform for years and years may only mean that Europe is already tired of bold eastern adventures.

If true, however, this will be the worst European signal since early 1990s when Brussels promised not to lock the door to any European country wishing to join the union and sharing its political and economic goals. This early signal made possible the end of the wars in former Yugoslavia, the détente between Turkey and Greece, several democratic revolutions and lots more positive political developments east of the former 'iron curtain'.

What can we expect from now on regarding this promise? Institutionally EU will get immobilized for at least another year due to presidential election in France. Putting finances in order in many key EU states will take many years at best. Only when European economy jumps ahead people will be ready to discuss organizational matters and eventually to accept new power redistribution among EU members. Only after all this done EU will be ready to move toward its next enlargement, although accession negotiations may go their way in the meantime.

Romania and Bulgaria profiles:

• Area: 237,500; 110,910 sq km
• Population: 22.3 million; 7.3 million (July 2006 est.)
• Population growth rate: -0.12%; -0.86% (2006 est.)
• Life expectancy at birth: 71.63; 72.30 years
• GDP per capita: purchasing power parity $8,200; $9,600 (2005 est.)
• GDP real growth rate: 4.5%; 5.5% (2005 est.)
• Population below poverty line: 25%; 13.4% (2005)
• Internet users: 4.9 million; 2.2 million (2006 est.)

(Sources: CIA World Factbook 2006, Reuters)

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