EC needs to treat Romania and Bulgaria equally

The European Commission needs to apply the same criteria to both Romanians and Bulgarians referring to the Commission’s decision to withdraw 220 million euro from Bulgaria, a Socialist MEP Hannes Swoboda declared, quoted by NewsIn.

Vice President of the Socialist European Party, Hannes Swoboda declared that the decision was a difficult step to make. He stressed that the EC must have considered this decision a lot as there are important consequences for the internal political context. What is important, Swoboda declared, is that the government needs to know what steps to take now to restore its status.

Moreover, Swoboda pointed out that both Romania and Bulgaria need to be treated equally and fulfill the same criteria. He considers that the two countries joined the EU too quickly and this is reflected in the current problems the two countries have.

Bulgaria was the first EU state to lose EU PHARE funds amounting to some 220 million euro because Bulgaria failed to offer concrete examples in its fight against corruption and fraud.