Bulgaria had “much to do” to meet public expectation in the EU, but there had been some positive sides of the country’s EU membership, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said at the closing of the two-day Party of European Socialists council in Sofia.

Bulgaria and its neighbour Romania entered the EU in the beginning of 2007 “amid high hopes that it would help boost the standard of living for Bulgarians,” eupolitix.com said.

According to Stanishev, “to some extent” public expectations of EU membership had been met.

“I have to also say that we still have much, much work to do in this regard. EU membership was seen as a great opportunity for my country whose people had, for many years, been led to believe that, once we joined, the EU would ‘take care of us’,” he added.

After EU accession, Bulgarian economy developed better than the economies of most old EU members.

Stanishev also said that he was ‘optimistic’ about Bulgaria’s euro adoption prospects.
 
“We have already met four out of five of the criteria laid down by the Maastricht treaty. The big problem now is the rate of inflation in Bulgaria but, though I am reluctant to fix a date, I believe that our membership of the eurozone is coming ever nearer,” he said as quoted by eupolitix.com.