LUXEMBOURG, April 25: Bulgaria and Romania cleared the final hurdle to join the European Union as early as 2007 when they signed an accession treaty on Monday.

The signing ceremony at Luxembourg’s Neumuenster Abbey opened the way for the EU’s second wave of enlargement into eastern Europe a year after the bloc’s “big bang” expansion brought 10, mostly ex-communist countries into the bloc.

“Today, we are celebrating the reunion between European history and geography,” said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

Bulgaria and Romania will enter the EU on Jan. 1, 2007, provided they carry out tough reforms to fight corruption, strengthen border controls, beef up judicial and administrative systems and improve rules on state aid to industry.

If they do not, their membership could be delayed until 2008, according to the 860-page treaty signed by Bulgarian and Romanian leaders and the EU foreign ministers.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told Bulgaria and Romania that his executive would give the countries all the help needed to avoid the delay.

“Rest assured that we will also be working with you to overcome any difficulties as you make your final push between now and January 2007,” Barroso said.

EU entry will irrevocably lock Bulgaria and Romania into the bloc’s zone of prosperity and provide billions of euros in aid to repair dilapidated roads, clean up the environment and modernise their often outmoded industries.

It should provide crucial foreign investment in the states whose economic output per capita is well below 40 per cent of the EU average. It will also extend the EU’s position as the world’s biggest trading bloc.

Enlargement will add more than 30 million to the bloc’s 454 million people and move its borders to the Black Sea.

Bulgaria and Romania missed the first wave of eastern enlargement last May because they had catch up further and their reforms were initially slow after the fall of communism in 1989.

Before 1989, the countries were subjected to autocratic and economically incompetent brands of communist regimes, especially Romania led by Nicolae Ceausescu, who called himself “Genius of the Carpathians” — after Romania’s main mountain ridge.

The fast-growing countries are now looking beyond EU entry, saying they will seek to join the euro zone. Bulgaria targets euro entry in 2009 while Romania’s tentative goal is 2012-2015.

Under the entry treaty, Romania, with 22 million citizens, is to receive more than 11 billion euros ($14.37 billion) in EU aid between 2007 and 2009, while Bulgaria, with 8 million people, will get more than 4 billion euros.

The countries’ officials will now participate in EU meetings as observers, boosting their political clout.

Some Western diplomats believe the countries, especially Romania, are not yet ready the join the EU because of rampant corruption, inefficient courts and insufficient protection of the Roma ethnic minority.

Their admission could add to “enlargement fatigue” in western Europe, which many analysts say is a factor in opposition to the EU constitution in the campaign for France’s May 29 referendum.—Reuters