The presidents are unanimous in the assessment that the future of the region depends on Europe's future and that there is no country that sees its future outside the EU, Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov told a news conference after the summit.
Participants in the Varna event reiterated that they fully supported the admission of Bulgaria and Romania after the European Commission recently postponed a final decision on the preparedness of the two Back Sea countries to join the European Union.
Central European presidents said that Bulgaria and Romania had no reason for concern and that this was the delay of several months during which they would be able to meet the remaining requirements.
Ivan Gasparovic, the President of Slovakia, one of the ten countries that entered the EU in 2004, told the news conference that he expected Romania and Bulgaria to join the Union on 1 January 2007.
He stressed that after them Croatia should be admitted since it had made great progress on the path towards the EU.
Poland's Lech Kaczinsky also expressed his backing for the admission of Croatia and Macedonia to the EU as well as of Bosnia-Herzegovina and later of Serbia.
The Polish president put the EU enlargement in the context of a common search for solutions to the energy crisis.
The host of the Varna summit, Bulgarian President Parvanov, said that the 13 presidents agreed that it was necessary for the region to further its cooperation and maintain permanent communication so that the countries in the region could accomplish joint objectives: peace, security, stability and economic prosperity.
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, who took part in the summit, did not attend the news conference because he had bilateral meetings with other participants in the event.
The next summit of Central European heads of state will take place in the Czech Republic.