BULGARIA joining the European Union as scheduled on January 1 2007 is clearly achievable, according to a report to the European Parliament by MEP Geoffrey van Orden, the rapporteur for Bulgaria.

Van Orden presented his report to the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on November 14. The committee had until November 17 to finalise any amendments to the report. The report will be put to a plenary session of the European Parliament in December.

The report welcomed efforts by Bulgaria's Cabinet and Parliament to approve legislation to meet accession requirements.

Van Orden urged EU member states to complete ratification of Bulgaria's and Romania's EU accession treaties as soon as possible.

His report urged Bulgaria to be able to show before April 2006 that it had taken effective action about the areas highlighted in the October European Commission report as being of serious concern.

These areas included freedom to provide services, company law, agriculture, justice and home affairs - specifically a failure to effective deal with organised crime and corruption - and regional policy.

In April 2006, a further EC monitoring report is due, and will play a crucial role in a decision on whether to allow Bulgaria to join the EU on the scheduled date, or whether this should be postponed until January 1 2008.

Van Orden said that Bulgaria was as close, or in many cases closer, to fulfilling accession criteria 14 months before accession, as any of the new member states were at the same stage in the accession process of the fourth enlargement.

He said that the prospect of timely accession was a major incentive to accelerating the pace of reform and that the target date for accession of January 1 2007 was clearly achievable.

Van Orden said that the changes underway were beneficial in themselves, not merely as a prerequisite of EU accession, and that the process of modernisation and reform must continue for many years after accession.

He said that crime rates in Bulgaria were generally no higher than in many member states. Progress has been made in combating certain categories of serious crime such as drug trafficking, people trafficking and currency counterfeiting.

But Van Orden expressed concern at the brazen nature of Bulgarian organised criminal elements and their involvement with apparent impunity in a series of audacious, high-profile murders in recent years.

Van Orden recommended measures to bring greater flexibility to the labour market, to encourage innovation, to increase mobility of the workforce and to improve education and training programmes. His report said that steps should be taken to assess the true level and nature of unemployment, given manpower shortages in some sectors.

According to a Bulgarian Foreign Ministry statement on November 11, the Danish parliament was ready to initiate a ratification procedure for Bulgaria's and Romania's accession treaties after it was submitted for debate, which is expected to happen in early December 2005, Parliament Speaker Christian Mejdahl told Bulgarian ambassador to Denmark Ivan Dimitrov. Mejdahl said that since Bulgaria complied with all EU membership conditions, he saw no problem admitting the country into the bloc.

In an interview with news agency AFP on November 11, Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said that Bulgaria had set joining the EU as its top priority but also vowed to keep "excellent" relations with the United States.

Kalfin said this was true despite the Bulgarian Government's firm decision to withdraw its troops from the US-led coalition in Iraq.

On the plus side, Bulgaria was in the midst of talks on hosting US military bases.

"We expect to keep our excellent relations with the US (but) our priority number one is joining the EU," Kalfin said.

Bulgaria had already started co-ordinating its foreign policy with the EU, Kalfin said.

He said that a delay until 2008 of Bulgaria's targeted EU accession was "a possibility," if Brussels saw insufficient progress in reforms, especially in improving justice and curbing corruption.

Kalfin said that a possible delay would be "very hard to explain" to what would be a totally disappointed public in Bulgaria.