On 1 January 2007 the EU welcomed two new Member States and 30 million people, when Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union. This completed the EU’s historic fifth round of enlargement peacefully reuniting Western and Eastern Europe after decades of division.

Bulgaria and Romania applied for EU membership in 1995 and both countries started their accession negotiations in February 2000. The negotiations were successfully concluded in December 2004 and the Accession Treaty was signed in April 2005. In its last monitoring report on Bulgaria and Romania of 26 September 2006, the Commission concluded that both countries are sufficiently prepared to carry the obligations of EU membership. To address the limited number of areas where further work will be necessary, the EU has adopted a package of accompanying measures.

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