/ world today news/ The Ministry of Justice proposes to the National Assembly that a Bulgarian passport be given in exchange for an exam on the history of Bulgaria, the country’s constitutional structure and knowledge of the local culture. The idea is expected to be discussed on Wednesday at a meeting of the parliamentary Committee on policies for Bulgarians abroad. The exam may be introduced with changes to the Law on Bulgarian Citizenship.
At the moment, a mandatory condition for a foreigner to apply for a passport on the basis of Bulgarian origin is to provide documents that he has Bulgarian ascendant relatives. These could be birth certificates, marriage certificates, baptismal certificates or even an old military record of a grandfather or great-grandfather. A year ago, however, it turned out that the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad had issued certificates of origin to nearly 2,000 applicants without attaching the written evidence required by law, but only on the basis of a declaration of national self-awareness, which is not regulated in a legal act. This only strengthened the publications in the world media that foreigners receive a Bulgarian passport for a fee.
Before going on vacation, at the proposal of VMRO, the parliament adopted at first reading changes to the Law on Bulgarians living outside the Republic of Bulgaria, according to which origin will be proven only with a written declaration from the candidate. The idea of the Ministry of Justice aims to ensure that only people who are interested in Bulgaria will receive citizenship.
From January 1, 2005 to June 30, 2015, 120,174 applications from foreigners for acquiring citizenship on the basis of Bulgarian origin were submitted to the Ministry of Justice, according to the statistics of the Citizenship Council. Of these, 20,703 applications were refused. The most common reason for refusal is submitted forged documents for ascending Bulgarian relatives, the falsification of which was established by forensic experts. There are also cases when a candidate arrives for an interview at the ministry and declares that he is not of Bulgarian nationality, although the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad has issued him a document with the opposite content. The procedure for obtaining Bulgarian citizenship, from the submission of the documents to the receipt of the vice president’s decree, currently lasts about 18 months, according to the Ministry of Justice. By comparison, for files created between 2005 and 2008, the average time was 48 months. Vice President Margarita Popova signs an average of 75% of the Citizenship Council’s proposals. The Council meets 3 times a month and in 2015 considered an average of 595 applications per meeting, informs trud.bg.
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