The European Union hopes to sign accession accords with Bulgaria and Romania in April or May, with a view to them joining the bloc in January 2007, the head of the EU's executive arm said Monday.

"We hope to have a treaty signed on the same day with both countries," said European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, after talks with Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov in Brussels.

"We are looking for a date (in) April or early May next year," he said, while also stressing that much depends on reform progress by Bucharest and Sofia.

Bulgaria and Romania are aiming to join the EU in 2007, three and a half years after the bloc's big bang enlargement in May this year which saw it take in eight former communist countries plus Cyprus and Malta, expanding from 15 to 25 members.

"I want to underline that this is our goal, but each country will be treated according to its own merits," he said.

"We keep the target of having both Bulgaria and Romania as full members of the European Union on January 1, 2007, and we very much encourage both governments to work with us to fulfil that objective."

The comments came as a draft of conclusions for a December EU summit confirmed that Bulgaria and Romania remain on track for their target EU accession date of 2007.

Both countries "will be able to assume all the obligations of membership at the envisaged time of its accession, January 2007, provided that (they continue) efforts to that end and complete in a successful and timely way all necessary reforms," it said.

Bulgaria provisionally completed its EU membership negotiations earlier this year, while Romania is hoping to have have done so in time for next month's summit.

The EU summit draft said that Brussels "will continue to monitor closely" preparations by both Bucharest and Sofia.