Bulgaria

General information

Domestic policies

Foreign policies and relations to Germany

Bulgarian economy

Infrastructure




General information

Official language: Bulgarian
Capital: Sofia
Form of goverment: parlamentarian republic
Chief of State: President Georgi PURVANOV
Head of government: Premier Sergey Stanishev
Area: 110’912 km²
Population: 7’332’900

Bulgaria is located in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula. The Balkan mountains divide the coutry basically into two geological parts: the Danube plains in the North and further lowlands in the South. The Rhodope Mountains, the Pirin Mountains, and the Rila Mountains can be found in the south-western part of Bulgaria.

Bulgaria borders Serbia, Mazedonia, Turkey and Greece. Furthermore, the Danube sets the 608 km long natural frontier to Romania.

Bulgarias 8 major cities are:
Sofia (population 1.33m)
Plovdiv (0.38m)
Varna (0.35m)
Burgas (0.23m)
Russe (0.19m)
Stara Sagora (0.18m)
Pleven (0.16m)
Sliven (0.15m)

Bulgaria is administratively divided into 28 districts (oblasti).

Ethnic Bulgarians form the majority of the Bulgarian population, by a share of 84%. Moreover, Turks (10%), Romanies (4.7%) and many other ethnicities can be found on Bulgarian territory.

Most Bulgarians (83.9%) belong to the Christian Orthodox Church. In the country’s southern parts, particularly close to the Turkish border, most of the muslim minority (12.2%) reside.

Domestic policies

a)
President – and as such the highest state entity referring to Bulgaria’s constitution – is Georgi Parvanov. He was confirmed in office by a huge elctors’ majority in 2006. The constitution provides the president a rather small range of competences, despite his direct election. His main tasks are the country’s representation in international affairs, appointing the Prime Minister (who is to be elected in the parliament and reflects to respective majorties), and promulgating acts of law. In singular cases, the president is entitled to countercheck the formal legality of acts to be promulgated. He is required to behave and act in a politically neutral manner.

b)
The Bulgarian constitution established a system of parlamentary democracy. The paliament, therefore, plays the key role in the legislative sector, widely independent from other constitutional entities. The parliament represents the people and is elected by direct universal suffrage. The parliament’s most relevant competences beside beeing the legislature are:
- Right to determine the state’s budget
- Right to vote the Prime Minister
- Supervision of the state’s executive branch
- Right of interpellation (information can be demanded from the government and the judicial branch)

c)
Bulgaria’s government comprises of the Prime Minister and other ministers.Sercey Stanishev has been elected as the country’s Prime Minister in 2005. It is th prime minister’s richt to designate “his” ministers, who thereafter have to be approved by parliament’s vote. Bulgaria’s government determines the principles of the coutry’s interior and foreign policies and heads the state’s executive branch.

d)
The judicature acts independently from legislature and the executive branch and controls an own budget. Principal courts are the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court. Moreover, numerous district and appelate courts exist.

Judges, prosecutors and investigative personnel are selected and dismissed by the Supreme Judicial Council. This entity belongs to the judicial branch, and it’s staff presides the country’s major courts, as well.

Bulgaria’s constitutional court is responsible for a strictly limited range of procedures. Unlike many countries, constituional complaints cannot be filed with this court by private or legal bodies. However, an ombudsman can be involved in all constitutional matters.

Foreign policies and relations to Germany

In the decades following 1945, Bulgaria acted within the “Socialistic Bloc” of coutries and had close relations to the GDR. But even back in the 1960s, state partnership and collaboration with Western Germany began. FRG becam Bulgaria’s major commercial partner in Western Europe. Hundreds of thousands of German tourist have been attracted by Bulgarian beaches and mountains ever since.

Bulgaria joined NATO in 2204 and the EU in 2007. Those memberships considerably determine the focus and direction of Bulgarian foreign policies. However, the traditionally close relations to Russia have neither been cut nor seriously shortened.

Bulgaria is furthermore member of the following international organizations:
ACCT, Australia Group, BIS, BSEC, CE, CEI, CERN, EAPC, EBRD, FAO, G- 9, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt, ICRM, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, IPU, ISO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, NAM (guest status), NSG, OAS (observer), OIF, OPCW, OSCE, PCA, SECI, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNMEE, UNMIL, UNMIS, UNWTO, UPU, WCL, WCO, WEU (associated), WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, ZC

Bulgarian economy

The major industries in Bulgarian economy are chemical productions, food, tobacco processing industry, metallurgy and steel production, carbon mining, and tourism.

Wine and tobacco is grown on a considerable share of Bulgaria’s agricultural area. Besides, Bulgaria exports several types of ecologically grown medicinal herbs, and the world-famous Bulgarian essence of roses.

Major commodities are
- tobacco, wine, essence of roses
- brown coal, anthracite, copper ore, rock salt, marble, and gypsum

Since 2000, Bulgaria strongly benefits form the growing incoming tourism industry.

GDP (PPP) in 2006: US$ 77.13 bn
GDP (PPP) per capita in 2006: US$ 10’400

The mean monthly salary is estimated at € 320,-. The unemployent rate currently is at 9.6%.

The Bulgarian curreny is the “Leva” (BGN). The exchange rate is fixed by the Bulgarian federal bank at 1€ = 1,95583 BGN.

Major trading partner s of Bulgaria are Italy, Turkey, Germany, Russia, and Greece.

Total export volume in 2006 is valued US$ 15.5 bn, whereas total imports are estimated at US$ 23.8 bn.

Infrastructure

Bulgaria, due to it’s location, is an important transit country for any traffic between Europe and the Middle East. It’s traffic network is in comparatively good shape. The road network measures in total 44’033 km. Bulgaria features four international airports (Sofia, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv), two seaports (Burgas, Varna) and several inland ports at Danube river, the most important of which is Russe.

Bulgaria is crossed by numerous pan-European traffic corridors. These are th corridors IV (Dresden-Budapest-Craiova-Sofia-Thessaloniki), VII (Danube), VIII (Tirana-Skopje-Sofia-Varna), and IX (Helsinki-Moscow-Bucarest-Dimitrovgrad-Alexandropolis).