The enlargement of NATO is a strategic imperative for Euro-Atlantic security, according to Bulgaria and eight other NATO applicant countries.

The alliance could not achieve its main objective under the changed conditions in today's Europe without decisively continuing the enlargement process, said Prime Minister Ivan Kostov on Friday. Kostov was attending the international conference on "Europe's New Democracies: Leadership and Responsibility."

Governmental leaders of the nine NATO applicant countries, forming the so-called Vilnius group (Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia) participated in the conference in Bratislava last Thursday and Friday.

"The enlargement process is, for the most part, political and has its undisputable moral, political, and economic dimensions," said Kostov. "Morally, it helps overcome the legacy of the past and rectify past injustices. Politically, it strengthens the new democracies and encourages their peoples.

"Finally, NATO enlargement would help along the economic growth of candidate countries, and help transform them into safe and attractive places to invest and do business in."

In several working groups, the participants discussed EU-NATO partnership, ways to achieve peace and stability in Southeastern Europe and in the Euro-Atlantic region, challenges to the new democracies, the risks in Europe today, corruption and organised crime, and the strengthening of civil society in building a united free Europe.

The prime ministers of the Vilnius Group adopted a Bratislava Declaration, in which they condemned the extremists' actions in Macedonia, welcomed the stabilising role of Bulgaria and Romania in the region, and urged the speedier enlargement of the alliance so that they could contribute to the stabilisation and reconstruction of the Western Balkans.

The Vilnius group presidents will meet in Sofia this October, hosted by Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov.