Bulgaria - The social impact of seasonal migration

• Adopting legislation for the admittance of foreigners as freelance individuals – a
separate permit regime is being introduced;
• At the same time – ensuring the equal treatment of those foreign migration-workers
that have been admitted to the Bulgarian market. In this area the criteria of EU
legislation and the requirements of other international organizations have been
covered.
Bulgaria is observing and adopting in its legislation the various requirements of the EU
regarding the citizens of member states and the citizens of third countries for workrelated
stay, for access to the labour market, for labour permission of the families of
workers who have already been admitted. Bulgaria is adhering strictly to the equal
treatment of those foreigners who have already been hired – regarding work conditions,
payment, holidays, dismissal, etc.
VI. In the field of integration policies a series of programmes have been
developed, oriented to the integration of returning highly qualified emigrants as
well as to preventing low-qualified emigration. This process should continue.
More efforts have to be put in developing programmes for better integration of immigrants
and refugees, including more programmes for learning the Bulgarian language, more
events presenting the specific culture of immigrants, as well as more active monitoring
of the actual defence of their rights.
Finally, our research team is deeply convinced that there is an urgent need for
establishing channels for better coordination of policies concerning migration. An efficient
tool in that direction will be the establishment of a State Agency dealing with migration.
At the present moment such an institution is planned as a Directorate at the Ministry of
Interior, but the problems of migration are wider than the issue of security, as they
concern employment and social insurance as well as the social, economic and cultural
impact of migration processes upon the Bulgarian society. The research team tends to
agree that this agency ought to be independent or directly subordinated to the Council
of Ministers. The establishment of such an agency will help the creation of a unified
information system for monitoring migration processes as well as of the practical
implementation of all migration regulation rules. Such an agency will be in a position to
initiate and elaborate concrete policies for coping with migration problems.
Next steps have to be oriented more towards strengthening the administrative structure, as
well as towards investing in education, training and the necessary human and technical
resources for controlling and professionally regulating the migration processes.
Last, but not least, is the need of financing of systematic research on processes of migration
(emigration, with a special focus on temporary migration, and immigration) and their impact
on Bulgarian society in order to elaborate adequate policies in that field.
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