Letter from Sofia/Michael Foley: Bulgaria is so keen on the EU that its flag is as visible throughout Sofia as the Bulgarian flag itself. So pro-Europe is it that you have to remind yourself it has not yet joined the Union.
As you walk from the aircraft to the terminal at Sofia airport the EU flag flies alongside the national flag; above the immigration officials stamping passports hangs the EU flag; there it is again outside the terminal building; and the road your taxi takes is called Brussels Boulevard. And if that is not enough, outside the Sheraton Hotel in the centre of the city the souvenir sellers sell, yes, you guessed it, plastic EU flags.
Love of the EU is not confined to flags. Poll after poll shows huge support for joining the Union, in the region of 70 or 80 per cent. Most people believe it will bring prosperity and the right to travel to western Europe.
So it was with some dismay that Bulgarians woke up after their recent elections to find they have voted for an inherently unstable parliament, with no clear victor or even clear coalition. Not good only 18-months before the planned entry to the EU.
Even worse, the result showed that Bulgaria's famed European enthusiasm was somewhat dented with the success of a new political party, Ataka, which translates as "Attack". Ataka is an ultra-nationalist party, opposed to Bulgaria's membership of Nato and the proposed membership of the EU. Opinion polls only registered the possibility of success for Ataka in the last week of the campaign, indicating that it could gain the necessary 4 per cent to take seats in parliament under the country's election rules.
The day after the election a taxi driver despondently said he and his fellow countrymen had "made a mess of everything". Until the election there was little doubt among Bulgarians that the country would become full members of the EU on January 1st, 2007. Now there is a large question mark.
The first sign that all was not well was the No vote in France and Holland against the European Constitution and the feeling that at least some of that negative vote was because of enlargement. Then the European Commission reminded Sofia of the need to tackle corruption, crime and reform of the judiciary.
And if that was not enough, there was a spate of bombings in which innocent people were killed, including visitors to a Black Sea holiday resort.
Crime in Bulgaria is almost all associated with the Bulgarian Mafia, a remarkably visible group.
In some of Sofia's better restaurants groups of big men in suits, sporting pony tails, large amounts of gold jewellery and large bulges under their armpits are often seen loudly ordering expensive wines and flashing money around before they move on to the nightclubs.
During the day they drive large four-wheel cars, the type favoured by mums on the school-run in Ireland.
As I sat one afternoon recently in the bar of the Sheraton, the city's most famous hotel, one man opened his attache case to pay his drinks bill - it was filled with notes, just like a scene from a film.
Some people quietly moved away, holding their breaths until he left. Journalists say the Mafia controls large sections of business, and prominent business people have been among those assassinated.
Earlier this year, for example, the head of a Bulgarian oil trading firm, Yavor Markov, was stabbed and killed in Sofia and officials said that the most likely motive for his killing was "business interests". No one has been charged with his murder.
One Mafia boss was killed, also earlier this year, by a sniper who was on the roof of one of the large buildings on Sofia's main shopping street, Vitosha Boulevard. He was leaving a first-floor club and about to get into his bulletproof car, surrounded by his bodyguards in their SUVs, when the bullet was fired. The sniper got away.
Another theatrical killing took place in a city hotel when someone dressed as an Orthodox priest entered the lounge and produced a gun from his ample cassock sleeve and shot a man. The "priest" was never caught.
Some of the Mafia bosses are given nicknames, just like our own criminals. In June five men and a woman passerby were injured when a bomb exploded in central Sofia near a car the men were travelling in. The car belonged to a Mafia boss known as the "Beaver", who was not travelling in it at the time.
Bulgaria's Mafia is deeply involved in the country's economy, and in some areas of the media. Its origins are complex and varied, but can be more or less dated to the collapse of the former communist regime in 1989 and the subsequent carve-up of the economy. It is often linked to the Russian Mafia, which is logical given Bulgaria's historic closeness to Russia.
The sanctions levied against Serbia during the war in former Yugoslavia also led to the growth of the organisation - smuggling being a most profitable enterprise.
The Bulgarian Mafia is still involved in drug smuggling and trafficking of people. Our own Criminal Assets Bureau has been to Sofia to advise the police on the workings of its organisation.
However, when asked if the Irish answer to organised crime could work in Bulgaria, locals laughed and said no one would join it. If they did, they would be be assassinated.