BRUSSELS (AFP) - Romania and Bulgaria will be ready to join the EU on schedule in 2007, according to a European Commission report on their progress.
They "will be able to fulfill all the criteria" for joining the union on January 1, 2007 and the accession treaty is likely to be signed early in 2005, a diplomatic source said Tuesday.
Romania and its Balkan neighbour Bulgaria, which dragged their feet in implementing reforms after the collapse of communism in 1989, were left out of the wave of EU enlargement which brought 10 countries into the EU on May 1.
The Commission, due to publish its latest annual reports on EU candidate states on Wednesday, will say that Romania now has a market economy able to withstand the competitive pressures inside the bloc, according to the diplomatic source.
Bulgaria was last year deemed to have a functioning market economy, a requirement for joining the EU.
Bulgaria closed its EU accession negotiations in June, but Romania has still to complete some areas of its entry dossier, notably in environmental, competition and legal fields.
It is aiming to close the chapters by the end of this year.