Sofia  - Bulgarian officials complained how the European Union stole their Christmas when it cancelled hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies because of fraud, but instead of putting thieves in prison, they blamed the global financial crisis.

After repeated warnings to its poorest member-state that subsidies aimed at improving the life of Bulgarians were being drained as a result of fraud, the EU in July suspended the payment of 486 million euros for various projects and demanded action from Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's cabinet.

SOFIA, Bulgaria, Dec. 5 - Bulgaria is experiencing its first economic crisis as a capitalist country, Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said Thursday.

Stanishev suggested that Bulgaria's problems are actually less severe than those of other members of the European Union, the Sofia News Agency reported. He said, for example, that the banking system is not in the kind of crisis that other countries face as a result of the collapse of the credit bubble.

But the country is not immune to the difficulties facing its economic partners, he added.

Sofia  - Bulgaria should not take part in financing the European Union's emergency economic recovery package, a top official said Friday in Sofia.

"It is out of place to finance the European economy with Bulgarian money," the head of the parliamentary budget and finance committee, Rumen Ovcharov, told the private Nova television.

Brussels - Bulgaria has missed the chance to claim 220 million euros (280 million dollars) in European Union funds because of ongoing corruption problems, the first time an EU state has ever suffered such a loss, officials in Brussels said Tuesday.

The EU's executive, the European Commission, has decided that Bulgaria's authorities still cannot be trusted with the money, and it is therefore "too late" for the country to award the funds to contractors before a November 30 deadline, commission enlargement spokeswoman Krisztina Nagy told journalists.

Sofia - A Sofia court late Monday sentenced two officials from the Bulgarian road agency for corruption, providing a legal epilogue to one of the scandals which deprived the poorest European Union member state of development funds in 2008.

The court sentenced Lybomir Lilev, the man who was in charge of distributing EU funds, and his subordinate Ivan Vladimirov for demanding a bribe to implement a project.