The Government will support Bulgaria's bid for European Union membership in 2007, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, told his Bulgarian counterpart, Mr Simeon Saxe Coburg, yesterday. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports from Sofia.
Mr Ahern held a number of meetings in Sofia with key political players as part of the Government's preparations for Ireland's coming EU Presidency, which will begin in January.
He said he hoped to deliver "a clear road map" to the Bulgarians during Ireland's period at the helm of the EU, based on the rules laid down in Copenhagen in the early 1990s for aspiring member-states.
The Copenhagen criteria demand that applicant countries have stable democracies, operate free markets, respect human rights and the rule of law and are able to take on board already agreed EU laws.
"They are the only criteria that I have supported for the last number of years. They are ones that I will rigidly follow during the presidency," the Taoiseach told Mr Simeon, the former Bulgarian king.
Bulgaria, which currently has concluded talks on 26 of the 31 chapters in its EU negotiations, hopes to finalise a deal before next June, and to join the EU from early 2007.
However, there are concerns in Sofia that the country's membership application could be delayed because its fellow applicant, Romania, is making far less progress.
Questioned by The Irish Times, Mr Simeon sidestepped the difficulties being caused by Romania, which provoked private talks between him and his Romanian counterpart last weekend. Romania and Bulgaria are the two countries in the fifth phase of enlargement.
The Taoiseach avoided dealing directly with Bulgarian complaints about EU demands that it close two further reactors in its nuclear power plant in Kozlodoui.
The Bulgarian economy is heavily dependent on foreign exchange earned from exporting electricity to Turkey produced at Kozlodoui, which is currently using just four of its six Russian-made reactors.