Bulgarian Socialists fail to form minority government

 Bulgaria's Socialists gave up trying to form a minority government on Thursday after they lost a vote of confidence in parliament, pushing the country towards a political crisis that could delay EU entry by a year.

The Socialists and their ethnic Turkish allies were defeated late on Wednesday in a hung parliament that emerged from inconclusive June 25 elections.

"With the lack of a necessary majority in parliament, we have reached the conclusion that the Socialist party's mandate for forming a government has been exhausted," Socialist leader Sergei Stanishev told journalists.

His party and their ethnic Turkish allies, the MRF, have 116 of parliament's 240 seats. Forced to pursue minority rule after ex-king Simeon Saxe-Coburg's centrists quit coalition talks last week, they had sought support from individual deputies.

Their defeat was followed by a new call from Brussels for the Black Sea state of 8 million to waste no more time forming a government and pass reforms needed to join the EU in 2007.