site.btaParliament Debates Demographic Crisis in Bulgaria, Asks Government to Report Implementation of Strategy

Sofia, November 17 (BTA) - Parliament held a debate on the demographic crisis in Bulgaria. The debate followed a question by the Left to the Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the demographic policy, Valeri Simeonov, about the policies to reverse the current dire trends.

As one result of the debate, Parliament asked the Government to report until November 30 to the legislature the implementation in 2016 of the national strategy for demographic development in 2012-2020. The Government was also given until the end of January 2018 to report to Parliament the implementation of measures for overcoming the demographic crisis set out in the government tenure programme (until 2021). Until the end of March 2018, the Government will have to prepare and submit to Parliament a demographic forecast until 2040.

The groups in Parliament concurred that Bulgaria is experiencing a demographic catastrophe and measures need to be taken as a matter of emergency.

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Mustafa Karadayi said that the power-holders fail to understand the magnitude of the problem and called for the resignation of Valeri Simeonov.

Simeonov declined to commend and said that the demographic crisis is not to be used for someone's political agenda.

He also said that the current problems are the result of trends that have been on for tens of decades and that the present government is not to blame for them.

He declined the opposition's criticism for lacking adequate policies.

As an example of one measure he said that in the past six months the Government has invested hefty resources from the budget in training programmes for tens of thousands of jobless people.

He said that the populations are dwindling even in the most advanced of countries and that it is difficult to device a universal working strategy for dealing with the demographic crisis.