Signs of corruption dot both the Bulgarian and Romanian countryside along the borders in the form of lavish villas belonging to border guards and customs officers. Dozens can be found here in Svilengrad, a town of about 20,000 on Bulgaria’s southern border. So notorious is the behavior of border guards and customs officers that they are the object of popular ridicule. “What do you give a border guard for his birthday?” goes one joke. The answer: “A shift on his own.”

But a local taxi driver, who gave a tour of the villas on the condition that his name not be used, defended the border guards, saying that they brought wealth to the town. He also said that one customs officer, now the owner of a hotel and casino, had replaced the windows in the school and rebuilt the local church.

“When they have money, we have money, too,” he said.

Trying to combat corruption, Bulgaria has started using computerized scheduling to assign its border guards to different posts randomly every few hours. Romania has taken steps, too. In the past year, it arrested 248 border guards and customs officers, some of whom were accused of collecting as much as 5,800 euros, or about $8,240, in a single shift.

In the past, some experts say, the arrests might have been enough to win the European Union’s approval. But no more.

“It is a moment of extreme conservatism, and Romania and Bulgaria are suffering from that,” said Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels. “After the end of the cold war, people were looking at the big picture. Now everyone is looking small, rather than thinking big.”

Image Romania and Bulgaria want to join a visa-free travel zone. Credit... The New York Times

Some experts say the reluctance to admit Romania and Bulgaria is also to a degree a sense of buyer’s remorse — a feeling that neither country was ready when admitted to the European Union.