QUOTE-UNQUOTE

Bulgaria must achieve in 10 years that which took Europe 40 years to achieve.

European People's Party chairman Joseph Daul on Bulgaria's first year of EU membership. Many Bulgarians found this eerily reminiscent of Bulgaria's Stalinist post-war leader Georgi Dimitrov's call for increased productivity: "Bulgaria must achieve in five years what other nations strove for over decades."

Every year the disaster is the same: Emel Etem.

Aleksandar Karakachanov, leader of the VMRO, or Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation, on the deputy prime minister and minister of state policy for disasters and accidents. During a snowstorm crisis at the beginning of the year Etem said natural disasters were none of her business

Stanishev, if you don't get rid of Pramod, we'll get rid of you!

Protesting workers at Sofia's Kremikovtsi plant as they call for a quick resolution to quarrels over company ownership and threaten to blockade the capital if their demands are not met. "We're not going to pretend to be heroes! The situation was by no means easy" – President Georgi Parvanov at Sofia Airport after his airplane ran into trouble over the Atlantic and had to make an emergency landing.

Not a single European lev was wasted illegally.

Veselin Georgiev, former head of the National Road Infrastructure Fund, who stepped down under pressure after it emerged his brother was employed in a senior road-building contractor position.

The clan establishment is bringing us back to the Middle Ages.

Ognyan Minchev, political scientist and chairman of the Bulgarian chapter of Transparency Without Borders, describing Bulgarian corruption

All Bulgarians have needs. And isn't that what we MPs are here for? To satisfy all their needs.

Tatyana Doncheva, MP for the BSP.