Bulgaria and Romania are marking Sunday, January 1, 2012, five years since they joined the European Union as full member states – a step that many across the EU still describe as premature.

Bulgaria and Romania's accession meant the EU had 27 members and half a billion people, stretching as far east as the Black Sea.

The two Balkan states, however, are still struggling with reforms in key sectors such as justice and home affairs, and have barely started to catch up economically with the western EU states.

What is more, Bulgaria and Romania failed to gain accession into the borderless Schengen Area in 2011 because of vetoes by the Netherlands and Finland. Most Western EU states have decided to keep their restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian laborers until the very end of the seven-year transition period in 2014.

Both Bulgaria and Romania are bound to join euro zone eventually but the prospects for that remain unclear all the more so because even the very survival of the common European currency is in question as a result of the debt crisis.

"The day we are welcoming - 1 January 2007 - will undoubtedly find its place among the most important dates in our national history. But let's make it clear, our future success as a nation depends not on European funds and resources, but on our own work," the BBC quoted Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, who is now ending his second term, as saying back on January 1, 2007.

In his 2012 New Year's address, however, Parvanov made no mention of Bulgaria's five 5 years in the EU, even though he did stress the impact of the debt crisis in Europe and the need for solidarity.