Diaspora Minister Vows 30 000 'New' Bulgarians by 2011

Bulgarian Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov (left) was the special guest at the PR Thursday club of M3 College. Photo by M3 Communications Group, Inc

Bulgaria's Diaspora Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov announced that half of the 60 000 Bulgarian citizenship applications that he found waiting upon taking office a year ago have been processed.

Speaking at a public discussion in Sofia organized by the "PR Thursday" club of M3 College where he was the special guest, Dimitrov said he planned to "process" the remaining 30 000 applications by the end of 2010 meaning that most of the applicants (who are of ethnic Bulgarian origin and from the historic Bulgarian communities abroad) will receive Bulgarian citizenship.

Dimitrov, an avid nationalist and historian and former head of the National History Museum, has recently been tangled in scandals over controversial statements. He is known for being a strong advocate of naturalization of ethnic Bulgarians living abroad as a means of fighting the demographic crisis.

In early August 2010, Dimitrov announced that 17 000 ethnic Bulgarians from Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, and Russia had been granted Bulgarian citizenship since September 2009.

According to Dimitrov, the greatest successes of the Borisov government have to do with making substantial progress on large infrastructure projects which were "abandoned" by the previous Cabinet – including the highways.

He also defended the controversial measure of the government in the winter of 2009 and spring of 2010 during which for about six months the government terminated all public procurement payments to businesses. He argued the temporary termination was necessary in order to examine the projects approved by the previous government, and pointed to notorious cases of public works such as the building of a small garage worth BGN 30 000 for about BGN 2.5 M.

"This government has managed to enter into a dialogue with the people. Borisov is criticized very often for shifting his policies but a rigid position would mean that one is not used to listen to the people. This is shown by the findings of our latest poll," declared the guest of PR Thursday Mira Yanova, head of the MBMD sociological research agency. She believes the Cabinet stands a fair chance of serving its full 4-year term.

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