4,324 Acquire Bulgarian Citizenship in 2003
19-01-2004 10:30 |
A total of 14,306 applications concerning Bulgarian citizenship were received at the Bulgarian Citizenship Directorate of the Ministry of Justice in 2003.
The Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria pronounced on 4,832 applications by a total of 101 decrees.
Bulgarian citizenship was granted to 4,324 applicants, including 4,094 of Bulgarian descent and 230 of non-Bulgarian descent. Resumption of Bulgarian citizenship was decreed for 102 persons, 405 were released from Bulgarian citizenship, and the naturalization of one was revoked.
The highest number of persons who acquired Bulgarian citizenship were from Macedonia (1,599), Moldova (1,063), Russia (337), Serbia and Montenegro (250), Ukraine (202), Israel (95) and Albania (59), due to the fact that there is a large Bulgarian Diaspora in those countries.
Figures for recent years demonstrate a steady upward trend in the number of persons willing to acquire Bulgarian citizenship. A total of 1,213 applications were granted in 2001, 2,904 in 2002, and 4,094 in 2003.
Conversely, releases from Bulgarian citizenship are tending down: 1,225 in 2001, 971 in 2002, and 405 in 2003.
The number of case files started in 2003 nearly doubled from 2002. Some 94% of the applications are for acquisition of Bulgarian citizenship. This is explained above all by the possibility of visa-free travel to the Schengen countries, as well as by the forthcoming admission of the Republic of Bulgaria to NATO and the European Union.
The huge number of file cases and flaws in the law, however, make it impossible to process the applications within the time limits provided for in the Bulgarian Citizenship Act. This evokes discontent among the applicants for acquisition of or release from citizenship.
Vice President Angel Marin has discussed the outstanding problems at working meetings with the Minister of Justice, with the Chairman of the Citizenship Council and with the President of the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad.
At General Marin's direction, the Legal Advisory Board to the President of the Republic has elaborated detailed observations on the required revisions of the law, which have been delivered to the Minister of Justice. The observations contain a number of proposals related to the criteria for granting of Bulgarian citizenship, equal treatment of persons from different regions when they prove their descent, time limits for ruling on the applications etc.
The Vice President believes that the Bulgarian Citizenship Act has to be amended and supplemented so as to be brought into conformity with the new political realities and the steadily increasing number of applicants for Bulgarian citizenship.
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