"We’re EU members and have Peace Corps volunteers.  On the surface these two things seem at odds." Well, that's been resolved. When I was in Bulgaria with the Peace Corps in 2002-2004, we were pretty much under the impression that the goal of our presence was to assist in enabling EU accession. Many of us were surprised when PC presence continued after that was achieved in 2007. Delaying the end-of-mission was probably a matter of bureaucratic procrastination, and a bit of just not rocking the boat, since it was mutually a pretty nice thing to do and to have between our two countries. When the Peace Corps finally ended its program in Bulgaria this past June it was like the parting of old friends, with sad goodbyes.