Bulgaria - The social impact of seasonal migration

The following units are responsible for the administrative services and control with
regard to the foreigners on the territory of the capital Sofia:
- Student and Permanently Residing Foreigners;
- Refugees;
- Businessmen;
- Tourists.
The tasks of the National Border Police Service are defined by MIAA. This is a
specialized security and investigation police force within the Ministry of Internal Affairs,
responsible to guard the state border and to control the observance of the border
regime. The Service exercises its powers and duties in the border zone, border
checkpoints areas, at the international airports, in the internal sea waters, the territorial
sea, the adjacent zone, the continental shelf, the Bulgarian part of the Danube river and
in the other rivers and water basins. The structure of the National Border Police Service
corresponds to the enumerated tasks.
As mentioned above, Bulgaria regulates visa issues through the Foreigners in the
Republic of Bulgaria Act and the Regulation on the Terms and Procedures for Issuance
of Visas by the Diplomatic and Consular Offices of the Republic of Bulgaria. The visa
policy of the country is almost fully in compliance with Regulation 574/99 of the EU
Council of 12 March 1999, enumerating third countries whose citizens must hold visas
when crossing the external borders of the member states. Bulgaria has introduced
unilaterally visa-free regime for individuals with standard international passport,
citizens of the USA, Canada, Japan, Israel, New Zealand and Australia. The country has
bilateral visa-free agreements with the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia,
Hungary, Croatia, Lithuania, South Korea, Romania, San Marino, Macedonia and
Yugoslavia.
In accordance with a Decision of the Council of Ministers, adopted in December 2000,
Bulgaria has started the procedure to terminate the bilateral visa-free agreements with
Georgia, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Tunisia. Due to that, the negative visa list
of the country is almost fully in compliance with the EU/Schengen one. The difference
is that Bulgaria will continue to have visa-free regimes with Macedonia and Yugoslavia
- two countries that are included in the Schengen negative list. Both are neighbouring
countries having minorities of Bulgarian origin and close economic relations with
Bulgaria. The above–mentioned Regulation enumerates 62 states qualified as
representing “risk” with regard to illegal immigration. Citizens of these countries must
meet additional requirements in order to obtain Bulgarian visa including inter alia
proving the aim of and the reasons for the visit, to demonstrate possession of financial
resources for the return trip or return ticket respectively, to demonstrate possession of
financial resources to meet the cost of their living and others.
As far as the sphere of return and readmission is concerned, Bulgarian legislation is
absolutely in compliance with the European acquis. When preparing readmission
agreements, the Republic of Bulgaria observes Council Recommendation No 274/20 of
30 November 1994, giving the model form of bilateral readmission agreement between a
65