site.bta100-200 People Daily Apply for Bulgarian Descent Certificate

100-200 People Daily Apply for Bulgarian Descent Certificate

Varna, on the Black Sea, November 21 (BTA) - Between 100 and 200 people daily apply for a certificate of Bulgarian descent, Ivanka Slavcheva, chief expert at the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad (SABA), said here on Saturday at the opening of the Sixth Session of the World Parliament of Bulgarians.

Under the Bulgarian Citizenship Act, holding such a certificate, issued by the SABA, is one of the conditions for the acquisition of Bulgarian citizenship by naturalization.

The applicants are mainly Bulgarians resident in Ukraine, Moldova and Macedonia, Slavcheva said. There are some 850 Bulgarian communities worldwide with which the Agency maintains contacts. The largest number of organizations are in the US, Canada, Spain, Germany and Britain. The associations in Australia are among the most active ones.

"The SABA operates, but its capabilities are rather modest, it rather performs coordinating functions," said Prof. Plamen Pavlov, President of the World Parliament of Bulgarians. He blames the lack of a purpose-oriented, strategic State policy. "Our compatriots worldwide give our nation a tangible presence, and the Bulgarian State must be far more active and help them," Pavlov noted. He specified that the 12,000 or so Bulgarians living in the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk have not received any assistance from Bulgaria. "Several families have arrived from there, and they were granted tourist visas," Pavlov said. He argued that it is now easier to settle in Bulgaria if you are a refugee than a member of the overseas diasporas.

"The Bulgarian State is very inactive," Stepan Sabii of Moldova agreed. He said that the 24,000 Bulgarians resident in the Taraclia District have been asking for years for the opening of a consulate, but have got no answer so far. "Approximately 90,000 Bulgarians live in Moldova, but there is no culture and information centre with the [Bulgarian] Embassy," Sabii added. He said that Bulgarian is taught at kindergartens, schools and lyceums in all settlements with compact Bulgarian population. The Bulgarians there have tabled a bill to the Moldovan Parliament to grant the Taraclia District cultural-historical region status.