Bulgaria - The social impact of seasonal migration

One should make a disclaimer on these data. First, the rubric "current private transfers"
contains not only remittances, but transfers from abroad of any kind. The Bulgarian
National Bank does not yet have a precise methodology to calculate the amount of
remittances only. Lacking a geographic indicator too, it can distinguish neither between
transfers from the USA, Germany, France, etc., or between transfers to Sofia, Plovdiv,
Varna or other Bulgarian cities. However, representatives of the Bulgarian National Bank
are aware of the growing importance of remittances for the balance of payments in the
country and are in the course of elaborating a finer methodology to calculate them.
Unaccountable for are also the money transferred cash from Bulgarians returning from
abroad. It is a wide-spread practice of temporary seasonal emigrants to carry money
personally on their way back home, for they are not obliged to declare sums below 5
000 BGN (3 012 USD) on the Bulgarian border.
Despite the considerable size of remittances, local authorities have not thought about
calculating the amount of money coming to their municipalities through the labour of
Bulgarian emigrants abroad. According to the secretary of Momchilgrad municipality -
Kurdzhali region, with a concentrated presence of Bulgarian Turks - her institution had not
attempted to identify this money as a viable financial resource to be appropriately
channelled in the local economy (interview No. 28). In spite of the widespread beliefs that
the remittances in the region of Kurdzhali are at least 100 million EUR a year, she
conceives of them as a "dead capital", immobilised into purchases of apartments, houses
or luxury cars. "This money does not circulate, does not serve the local business", adds the
secretary who is convinced that receiving EC programmes' grants is the only mechanism
for stimulating the regional economy. In her opinion, money from seasonal workers
abroad is not significant, because such people work primarily in low-wage sectors, do not
bring a lot of money, and whatever they bring is used for consumption (often conspicuous
- "Momchilgrad municipality is the region with most Mercedes cars per person in the whole
country", interview No. 28).
Low wages and insufficient start-up capital is the reason stated by migrants themselves
when asked why they had not contemplated beginning a small business in their home
places. "Money is little. How much could one save for a year? Less than 10 000 levs,
maximum 800 levs per month. That is it, this is not enough for business", says a seasonal
migrant who had worked in the construction industry and the greenhouses in the
Netherlands (interview No. 34). According to his calculations, one should work there for 4-
5 years in order to save enough for starting up a small private enterprise. With a salary of
around 800-900 EUR, and expenses for rent at 150 EUR and food at 150-200 EUR per
month, saving for opening up of a small business at home seems a very long-term strategy
to the seasonal migrant.
Yet the pattern of allocating migrants' money to houses and apartments has boosted the
market of immobile property in the region, whose prices have increased significantly in
the last years. On the one side, there are numerous apartments and houses, emptied as
a result of the mass emigration of Bulgarian Turks to Turkey throughout the 1990s, and
from the other - seasonal workers with savings in euro who are able to buy more
expensive property.
However, the mayor of Kirkovo municipality - an ethnically mixed region on the
Bulgarian-Greek border in South-eastern Bulgaria, inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims
(Pomaks) - believes the situation in Momchilgrad is much better than in his area where
seasonal labour migration is also a pronounced pattern, with flows directed to The
Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Israel, less Germany and increasingly Greece. This is so
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