The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Wednesday gave its backing to Bulgaria and Romania joining the European Union, which is scheduled for January 2007.

The full 732-member parliament is to hold a vote on the subject in a plenary session on April 13, only days ahead of the April 25 signature of a treaty on Bulgaria and Romania's accession.

On Tuesday EU enlargement commissioner Ollie Rehn urged EU lawmakers to support the membership bids of both Bulgaria, which was "reasonably on track" to join the bloc, and Romania about which he was "cautiously optimistic."

Urged by Rehn in the last EU evaluation to make its justice system more resistant to corruption, the Romanian government has been in a race against the clock to do so, and to implement other EU accession criteria.

"The government is fully committed to establishing working laws to combat corruption," Romanian President Traian Basescu told a press conference in Bucharest on Wednesday.

"We have pledged to clean up the justice system and reduce the rampant corruption in Romania," he added.

The main problems facing Romania are how to better use EU funds, restructure party funding, crack down on tax evasion, re-schedule company debts and create conditions suitable for foreign investment.

Romania and Bulgaria, which were slower to begin economic and political reforms after the 1989 collapse of communism, should follow eight ex-communist countries which joined the EU last year.