BRUSSELS (AFP) -- Bulgaria and Romania have cleared the last hurdle to joining the EU next year, the European Commission announced, after the German parliament ratified their entry into the club.

"I welcome today's vote in the German Bundesrat (upper house) on the accession treaty of Bulgaria and Romania, which completes the ratification process in Germany. It also completes the ratification process as a whole in the EU, since all the parliaments of the 25 member states and both acceding countries have now ratified the treaty," said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. "This finalizes the last legal step for the accession of the two countries. Thus I welcome Bulgaria and Romania as new member states in our Union on 1 January 2007."

Friday's vote represented "proof that the interest of the EU in Romania's entry and the completion of our efforts," said Romanian Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu in Bucharest.

"We see it as recognition of the efforts which Bulgaria has made to fulfill" its obligations, said a Bulgarian foreign affairs spokesman.

Both incoming nations were worried some months ago about the time it was taking some countries to ratify their memberships.

Some, including France, Denmark and Germany waited until the autumn to adopt the necessary adhesion protocol to keep up the pressure on the two countries to make further progress.

While the Bulgarians and Romanians will become full members of the club on January 1, they will do so under close scrutiny.

The Commission, the EU's executive arm, in September eschewed the possibility of delaying membership for a year, choosing instead to impose the strictest conditions for any new members.

These concern the areas where Sofia and Bucharest are deemed most deficient; the judicial system, management of EU funding and food safety. Air security is another issue but only for Bulgaria, according to a recent Commission report.

Sanctions in these areas will be available to the Commission and fellow EU states for three years after admission.

The member states could refuse to recognize Romanian or Bulgarian judicial decisions or could partially suspend farm aid to the pair.

Between now and January 1, the EU still has to tidy up the institutional paperwork, in particular the acceptance of the future Bulgarian and Romanian EU Commissioners -- each nation is allocated one portfolio.

The two commissioners-designate -- Bulgarian Meglena Kouneva will take the consumer protection brief and Romanian Leonard Orban will become commissioner for multilingualism -- will appear before the relevant European parliamentary committees on Monday.

The eurodeputies will then endorse -- or not – their nominations at a plenary session on December 11-14.

Bulgaria and Romania began the membership process in 2000, along with the 10 mainly ex-Soviet bloc nations who joined the EU in 2004.

Their admittance to the European Union continues the process of embracing former members of the Communist bloc which crumbled 15 years ago.

Still waiting in the wings after January 1 will be the western Balkan states of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, with Croatia at the front of the queue.

However the Union wants to sort out its own constitutional crisis, caused by the rejection of the bloc's draft constitution by Dutch and French voters last year, before letting anyone else into the club.

Croatia could become the 28th EU member state but not until 2009-2010.

As for Turkey, another EU hopeful, the membership horizon is growing more distant as relations grow more strained, and few observers expect Ankara to be popping any European champagne corks for at least another decade.