SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's government won endorsement from the EU executive on Thursday for its demands to be let in to Europe's more exclusive clubs despite critics at home and abroad who question Sofia's record on tackling corruption.
Eleven years after joining the European Union, the bloc's poorest nation grasped its first taste of holding the rotating presidency of EU ministerial councils to stage a show of loyalty for visiting Brussels dignitaries and ram home its demands to join the euro currency area and Schengen free-travel zone.