EU membership will be a lucrative prize for both nations -- rewarding them for a decade and a half of struggling to forge democracies.

"We will enter a period of certainty," Romanian Prime Minister Calin Popecu Tariceanu said Sept. 26 after the EU Commission issued a report declaring the two Balkan neighbors ready to join the 25-nation bloc.

Bulgaria's premier, Sergei Stanishev, hailed the historic decision as "the final fall of the Berlin Wall."

But the mood in Bucharest and Sofia was muted: The EU report, acknowledging that both nations have come up short in their race to catch up with Western Europe, urged the bloc to make economic aid conditional on continued progress in efforts to stamp out corruption, crack down on organized crime and improve justice and home affairs.

The Japan Times Weekly: Sept. 30, 2006
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