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EU May Oust Bulgaria and Romania

Where: Bulgaria
October 28, 2008 at 11:00 AM | by ced138 | 2 Comments

EU residents: Get thee to Bulgaria and Romania quickly--before the union boots the new members out. Since their acceptance last year, neither country has managed to stamp out corruption and fraud to an acceptable degree, a commission found, and now Bulgaria is on the brink of losing a good chunk of funding because of it.

It came to light earlier this year that millions in EU aid had poured into the pockets of high-ranking thieves. The funding was frozen, and a deadline for Bulgaria to fix the problems causing the corruption expires this month.

Experts say that if the trend continues, there's no way the Union will continue to keep the countries inside the circle. Originally, it was thought Bulgaria and Romania's membership would represent the emergence of former Soviet Bloc countries into the Western sphere. Instead, it's come to show the trouble transforming Communist strongholds into functioning democracies.

So unless you're a thick-neck former body builder with a defective conscience or a travel writer, these two countries might not be the vacation destination for you.

Related Stories:
· Bulgaria Risks Becoming EU Cautionary Tale [IHT]
· Sofia Soft Porn [Jaunted]

[Photo: mbell1975]

2 Comments

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Return to » EU May Oust Bulgaria and Romania

  1. Leif Pettersen

    Jaunted Member

    Choice of language

    I can't speak for Bulgaria, but I think the main problem in Romania is that they haven't taken the EU threats of sanctions seriously. See, EU threats tend to be very diplomatically worded. So, when not-so-bright Romanian officials read things like "The EU feels that Romania needs to take measures to improve oversight and increase efforts at combating embezzlement," they're like "Yeah! We're getting away with it! Woo hoo!" If the EU really wants to impress upon Romania that they need to stop with the fraud ASAP, they need to say something like "Hey assholes! We know you're taking our money to buy fourth homes and expensive cars for your lazy-ass kids! Stop it now or we're gonna [expletive] you guys where the sun don't shine!!" Or something.
    October 28, 2008 at 2:00 PM
    #Permalink

  1. emilper

    Jaunted Member

    nice journalism

    Nice piece of journalism ...

    How about writing that neither Rumania nor Bulgaria have seen much of the money that were promised, and right now are among the countries that give more to EU than take back ?

    October 28, 2008 at 4:25 PM
    #Permalink

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