A session of the joint Euro-Bulgarian parliamentary committee denied claims that various parties were trying to postpone Bulgaria's membership to the EU. The conclusive declaration of the session was that Bulgaria still had the opportunity for on-time accession in January 2007 if it worked on problematic areas. The biggest worry remains the slow accession treaty ratification process. Only six countries from the 25 EU member states have approved the document so far. The committee appealed for a faster ratification process in the remaining countries. It also recommended that the membership of Bulgaria be considered independently from the accession of other countries such as Romania and Croatia. The statement addresses worries that Bulgaria might be forced to wait due to slow reform processes in other  EU candidate member countries, Sega newspaper reported.
Ratification should not be tied to the European Commission's latest report, the committee recommended. A number of EU members said they would wait for the second EC report in the spring before they decided whether to ratify the accession treaty. Bulgaria's European Integration Minister Meglena Kouneva participated in the session. Kouneva said that on December 1, Bulgaria's Cabinet would accept a new EU-accession strategy.