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History of Relations

Political relations

Bulgaria established diplomatic relations with the EU in 1988. In 1993, the European Association Agreements signed and it entered into force in 1995.

In December 1995 Bulgaria submitted its application for EU membership in December 1995. The Commission presented its first Regular Report on Bulgaria's progress towards accession in November 1998. The second report, released in 1999, recommended that formal negotiations are opened.

Accession negotiations between Bulgaria and the EU started on 15 February 2000. Accession talks concluded on 15 June 2004, six months ahead of schedule. The Brussels European Council of 17 December 2004 confirmed the conclusion of accession negotiations with Bulgaria and accordingly looked forward to welcoming it as a member from January 2007.

The European Parliament gave its support to Bulgaria's EU membership on 13 April 2005. The vote was 522 in favor and 70 against, with 69 abstentions.

The Accession Treaty was signed in Luxembourg on 25 April 2005. Depending on further progress in complying with the membership criteria, the objective is EU membership from 1 January 2007.

The agreement between Bulgaria and the EU includes also the possibility of postponement of Bulgaria's accession with one year if the EU sees a "serious risk" of the country being unable to implement the required reforms.

The 2004 Regular Report recalls that the reform of judiciary and public administration stands out as overriding priority. Bulgaria made sustained efforts to develop sufficient administrative and judicial capacity to implement and enforce the acquis communautaire.

In February 2005, the Commission passed a positive judgment on the signing of Bulgaria's Accession Treaty, scheduled for April 2005. Meanwhile, the Commission continued to keep a watchful eye on how Bulgaria was carrying out its commitments with regard to implementing reforms, notably putting into practice an enhanced monitoring system to oversee Bulgaria’s final preparations for membership and to compile annual reports on Bulgaria's progress towards the accession, which was completed on 1 January, 2007.

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Economic relations

The European Commission has considered Bulgaria a functioning market economy since 2002.

For Bulgaria and Romania the framework for the bilateral trade relations before enlargement is the Europe agreements. The Europe agreement with Bulgaria covers a large number of issues, focusing on:

Trade liberalization and other trade-related issues;
Political dialogue;
Legal approximation;
Other areas of co-operation, in the area of industry, environment, transport and customs.

The Agreement aimed to establish progressively a free-trade area between the EU and Bulgaria, on the basis of reciprocity but in an asymmetric manner. In other words, liberalization was to be implemented more rapidly by the EU than by Bulgaria. Currently, over 95% of country’s trade with the EU is conducted freely, while a few agricultural and processed agricultural products remain subject to customs duties on both sides.

In 2003, Bulgaria was the Union 's 35th trade partner and total bilateral trade (imports and exports) amounted to €9.2 billion, a figure, which has doubled since the entry into force of the EU-Bulgaria Europe Agreement in February 1995. In 2003 the relative share of the Bulgarian exports to the EU accounted for 56.6% (€ 3769.8 million) of Bulgaria’s total exports.

Bilateral trade consists mostly of textiles and clothing, machinery and chemical products. The EU’s surplus in EU-Bulgaria trade relations has increased every year since 1999.

Investment links between the EU and Bulgaria are substantial and their increase since the entry into force of the Europe Agreement in 1995 is spectacular: EU investment flows to Bulgaria increased by 95% in the same period.

The EU has recently adapted its Europe Agreement with Bulgaria in order to reflect its 2004 enlargement. The aim of the adaptation was to ensure that traditional trade flows between the three countries and the new member states would not be disrupted.

After the accession of Bulgaria to the EU, the economic relations are defined in the Treaty of Accession of Bulgaria and Romania.

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