Bulgaria – the difficult “return to Europe”

On 1 January 2007 Bulgaria finally became a member of the European Union, despite doubts about its readiness, and despite general enlargement fatigue in most of the “old” EU members. Bulgaria has not felt its welcome so far to be warm. This is due not only to the fact that Bulgaria still has a lot of problems to solve but also to the unfavourable, stereotyped image the rest of Europe has of Bulgaria, which has been reinforced by the media. For example, British newspapers started months before the accession to warn against the flood of immigrants it would generate, mainly consisting of HIV-infected teenagers, Bulgarian gangsters and child thieves, often accompanied by pictures of donkeys and wooden carts.