Organized crime and corruption have no place in the European Union, EC President Jose Manuel Barroso warned at a press conference after meeting Bulgaria's PM Sergey Stanishev on Friday.

Barroso declared that he sees progress in the reform of the judicial system but concrete results of the fight against organized crime and high-level corruption are still needed.

The EC President also said that the recently frozen payments for the country under PHARE, ISPA, and SAPARD programs must be accepted by the government as an "alarm clock ringing."

Barroso also assured that the monitoring report of the Commission that is due in June would be absolutely objective.

The visit of Jose Manuel Barroso to Sofia was provoked by the recent scandalous arrests of top-level officials in the Interior Ministry that spurred allegations of ministry's relations with organized crime.

On Wednesday, Stanishev commented that what is happening in the Interior Ministry cannot be defined as scandals but "healthy processes."

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