[mschuster91]

The EU knew the state of Bulgaria and Romania before inviting them to join.

The general idea was that a certain amount of nation-scale wealth transfer (e.g. via infrastructure projects, ag subsidies) and individual wealth transfer (e.g. remittances of people working abroad) would help bring the former Eastern Bloc countries up to speed, gradually remove corruption and transform towards democracy.

Let's keep it at "the idea was nice, the actual execution was... flawed".

[kavalg]

Just out of curiosity, when you say actual execution do you mean the execution done by EU bodies or the execution of the government(s) of Bulgaria?

[mschuster91]

Both to be honest, and that's not just for Bulgaria/Romania but all former Yugoslavian and USSR countries, and even Western-allied countries such as Greece and Italy.

The EU failed to predict local government's corruption or outright destructive behavior (e.g. Visegrad blockade in refugee questions), its foundational assumption was that member states were all aligned towards one common goal and not behave actively destructive. Local governments failed to uphold their values and more often than not saw the EU as a cash cow waiting to be exploited.