Brussels risks undermining Bulgaria’s government and boosting political extremists if it imposes tough sanctions on Sofia for failures in tackling corruption and organised crime, warns the country’s prime minister.

“Speculation that [the European Commission] will have to punish us ... and make an example of us ... will actually harm the reform process, because a very negative political report [from Brussels] will harm the people who are doing their best to implement the reforms,” Sergey Stanishev said in an FT interview.