Lesser prime ministers than Sergei Stanishev would be loath to admit, for fear of embarrassment, that the people of their country are incapable of running it.

Because that is the impression we get from Stanishev’s pleas for foreign help in running Bulgaria.

According to the resolution approved by the Cabinet on April 2 (a day earlier would have been quite appropriate), the idea is being dressed up as "co-operation" with other EU countries.

It is worth quoting extensively from the Cabinet statement: "The main areas of the co-operation procedures will be the business environment, the improvement of legislation, the reform of the justice system and the administration of justice, the management of European funds, and administrative capacity". (Good - not much left off the list, then. CLS).

"It is planned to set up missions for the provision of assistance by experts of the EU countries on a bilateral basis, to appoint independent experts to key positions in the administration and the secondary users of the budget, as well as experts of the State from regional or local administrations of the EU countries at key positions at central and local level." No wonder there was talk of subsidising summer holidays for Bulgaria’s civil servants; they will have time on their hands.

It gets better, of course, given that the Cabinet decision was made a day after European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso shot down the idea and, in effect, told Stanishev that it was up to Bulgarians to run Bulgaria. The Stanishev plea probably would be grist to the mills of those who say that the country was not ready for the EU in the first place.

As it turns out, Bulgarian law was changed about a year ago to allow citizens of EU countries to get jobs in the civil service in Bulgaria (don’t all rush, now). I do not know whether there are any general guidelines to be admitted to this country’s civil service, apart from the customary rudeness, arrogance and apparent belief that civil servants are authority figures in relation to the taxpayers who fund their salaries.

I was surprised to learn that, according to European Affairs Minister Gergana Passi, 130 "experts" from EU countries are employed in the Bulgarian administration, although it is not clear where.

As to the quotation marks around that word "experts", it is a practice of mine given how the word is so loosely used and abused in Bulgaria. In the civil service, it can be a job title - a greenhorn with a degree is officially titled an "expert"; I have seen obviously junior and inexperienced types presented as "PR experts" and Bulgaria boasts at least one "media expert", a term that is especially laughable. I have noted elsewhere that for a country that boasts so many experts in its public and private sectors, Bulgaria is astonishingly badly run.

Of course, one has to add just a teeny, ever so minor, note of qualification. As we all know, the EU and its individual other 26 member states are administered flawlessly by people of superb intellectual depth and managerial expertise. Rattle any steel-and-glass building and experts just come trooping out by the score (although there could be other reasons for that happening at the moment). One need only round them up, and offer them Bulgarian-level salaries. I hear the laughter turn to tears.

One last note, that epitomises the state of Bulgaria’s administration. The Interior Ministry maintains personnel in a Helicopter Unit. For the past four years, the unit has had no helicopter.