If EU applied monitoring to Bulgaria's juridical system, it must be considered a signal for the whole society, not only a criticism against the Interior and Justice Ministries, European Integration Minister Meglena Kouneva said.

Kouneva said that she would make everything possible to present and explain properly to the European Commission (EC) what reforms Bulgaria had achieved so far.

EC criticised Bulgaria for the lack of progress in several fields. If Bulgaria failed to fulfil all EC requirements, the commission could introduce safeguard clauses in Bulgaria's EU accession treaty.

Safeguard clauses were also included in the EU accession treaties of the countries that joined the EU in 2004, Kouneva said.

The idea of the safeguard clauses was to emphasise on the necessity of strict discipline in the EU, she said.

EC gave no clear signal whether it planed to apply such clauses to Bulgaria's entry, Kouneva said.