Bulgaria admitted to the World Trade Organization

The member states of he World Trade Organization (WTO) unanimously approved the admission of Bulgaria to this trade body in Geneva on October 2, 1996. The country parliament will have to ratify the accession agreement before Bulgaria can formally become a member.

Bulgaria started its accession negotiations with the WTO predecessor GATT. However, the negotiations were suspended at some point and had to be reopened with the new organization after it was formed in the beginning of 1995. Bulgaria is the last of the former Soviet-bloc states in Europe to join WTO. The WTO membership is one of the preconditions for the Bulgarian membership in CEFTA- an economic organization comprised at present of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia.