Entropa, the art installation that prompted an outcry in Sofia when it was unveiled inside an European Union building in January, was being dismantled on May 11, the Czech presidency of the EU said in a statement.

David Černý, the Czech author of the installation, requested that his artwork was taken down after the centre-right government of former prime minister Mirek Topolanek lost a parliamentary confidence vote, AFP reported.

The government had been "wiped out by the old bolsheviks and socialists and president (Vaclav) Klaus," AFP quoted Černý as saying.

"The Czech presidency preferred the option to let the installation remain in Brussels as originally planned. However, the presidency fully respects artistic freedom and therefore also the wish of the creator of the installation to remove the work already on the chosen day," the presidency's statement said.

Entropa attracted large crowds of onlookers in front of the Justus Lipsius building, routinely used for EU summits. But it also sparked controversy as soon as it went up, since it played on widely-spread and unflattering stereotypes of EU member states, portraying Romania as a Dracula theme-park, France as a country on strike, while Britain was not represented at all.

Yet nowhere else did the outrage reach the same proportions as in Bulgaria, depicted as a squat toilet, which in Bulgaria is known as a "Turkish toilet".

It elicited a mixed response in Bulgaria, where authorities and most media criticised what the Bulgarian permanent representation to the EU called "a humiliation for the Bulgarian nation and an offence to our national dignity". But on forums and blogs, others said it was an accurate representation of how Europe saw Bulgaria, as a country making no progress despite repeated criticism.

Bulgaria demanded the work be taken down, but all it received was an apology from Černý. The image of Bulgaria was covered with a black cloth instead.