Bulgaria was among the candidate states for European Union accession that strongly allied themselves to the EU as Europe faced demands for reparations for colonialism and slavery at the United Nations world racism conference.

The controversy-wracked conference, held in Durban, South Africa, was regarded by most Western observers as having been hijacked by those seeking condemnation of Israel for "racist" acts against the Palestinians.

The conference was further disrupted by the demands from third world states and African-Americans for reparations for colonialism and slavery. This confounded EU hopes that the event would be forward-looking and tackle more immediate issues such as the rising tide of xenophobia.

Minority ethnic groups like the Roma and India's Dalit "untouchables" found themselves reduced to side issues as the first and third worlds drew battle lines over the reparations and Middle East issues.

Petko Draganov, Bulgaria's deputy minister of foreign affairs, told a plenary session that the conference was about the future. "We acknowledge the necessity to address past practices, but they should not continue to haunt us forever."

Draganov supported the view of the U.S. and Israel, who walked out of the conference in frustration, that a world conference should send "universal, rather than regional messages." "Let us not expand our foreign policy agendas into racism. Racism is first and foremost a human rights issue and it should be addressed in the context of human rights instruments," he said. While no nation had a perfect record of anti-racism, Bulgaria was able to point out that during the years of the Holocaust, the country had prevented the deportation of Bulgarian Jews to concentration camps. Bulgarian society was known for tolerant inter-ethnic relations, and was trying to represent a successful model in this regard for the entire Balkan region. Several ethnic and minority groups are represented at the ministerial level in the new cabinet. The country has taken a number of steps to champion minority rights, including the establishment of the National Council on Ethnic and Demographic Rights at the Council of Ministers.

Draganov said that building a culture of respect for peoples' differences was a process.

Bulgaria had embarked on this path by advancing its negotiations on accession to the EU. As each day of the eight-day conference saw proceedings plunge further into stalemate and controversy, a group of more than 70 Eastern and Central European non-government organizations disassociated themselves from the racism conference's NGO forum declaration. The NGOs stated that the declaration, replete with anti-Israel statements, could not be regarded as having been adopted legitimately because there had been a series of procedural violations and discussion had been heavily restricted.

The conference also saw a street protest by Roma, who demanded to be listed as victims of racism and for the conference to declare the slavery and Holocaust-era extermination of Roma as crimes against humanity.

As negotiations threatened to remain in deadlock, some EU states let it be known they were considering walking out, and predicted that if they went, EU candidate states would follow. The conference, which went into extra time as the impasse over the Middle East and reparations endured, finally included a statement on the Middle East which stopped short of branding Israel a racist state. Slavery was recognised as a crime against humanity, but the European bloc stressed that it would accept no financial liability for the practices of the past.