'Time running out' for Bulgaria's EU reforms

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso warned Bulgaria yesterday that time was running out for the country to launch reforms needed to avoid a one-year delay in joining the European Union to 2008.

Mr Barroso urged new Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, who made his maiden foreign trip to the EU headquarters, to ensure that economic and political reforms passed by parliament are actually implemented.

"It is important not only to pass legislation... but as important as new legislation is effective implementation," Mr Barroso said after talks with Mr Stanishev.

"There is a sense of urgency and I conveyed it to the prime minister," Mr Barroso added.

Mr Stanishev's Socialist-led coalition government was sworn in this month after weeks of political squabbling that followed an inconclusive general election in June.

"We want very much Bulgaria in the EU as soon as possible, but... time is running out," Mr Barroso told a news conference.

Bulgaria and neighbouring Romania, which missed the EU's first wave of enlargement into the ex-communist eastern Europe last year, signed the accession treaty in April.

But their membership could be delayed to 2008 from 2007 if they fail to implement agreed reforms on rooting out corruption, beefing up border controls and strengthening their administrative and judicial systems.

Mr Stanishev reiterated that his government would do all it can to avoid a delay in accession. "European membership is our number one priority," he said.