EU threatens Bulgaria with isolation

A week ago, Michael Leigh, the European Commission's director-General for enlargement, published a letter highly critical of the way Bulgaria handles its EU funding. The Bulgarian daily comments: "It is perfectly clear that Brussels' punitive action of freezing funding under the Phare, Ispa and Sapard programmes was a consequence of the lack of legal and domestic reforms. Nonetheless, sorting out the affair involving Bulgaria's structural funds, for example, will pose a major dilemma for the government because the trail would no doubt lead to party funding. Neither the country's economy nor its government want this. ... The 'iron curtain' which Brussels is now constructing between itself and its young EU member is even more dangerous than that which existed in the 1990s, because back then Bulgaria was nonetheless able to gain access to the forbidden CoCoМ system (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls)."

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