The European Commission (EC) has welcomed the announcement by Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev that the country would close duty free shops along its borders, EC spokesperson Mark Gray said.

Gray said this was an important signal from the Bulgarian side that it took the recommendations from the EC's interim report seriously.

According to the EC interim report, published on February 4, Bulgaria did not show convincing results in its fight against corruption and organised crime. For the first time the report said it would be necessary to close duty free shops and gas stations along Bulgaria's borders with Turkey and Serbia, mediapool.bg said. The duty free shops and gas stations were a source of corruption according to the EC.

Grey said the EC would like to similar advances on other shortcomings pointed out in the report.