FYROMacedonians Top Contenders for Bulgarian Passports

Πάνω από 60.000 Σκοπιανοί ζήτησαν το πολυπόθητο Βουλγαρικό διαβατήριο. Τα διαβατήρια δίνονται με αργούς ρυθμούς καθώς το 60% των αιτηθέντων χρησιμοποιεί ψεύτικα χαρτιά, για να αποδείξει τη Βουλγαρική καταγωγή, ενώ για να δοθεί η Βουλγαρική υπηκοότητα, τα "Χαρτιά" ελέγχονται σχολαστικά από το "γραφείο απόδημου Βουλγαρισμού".
Γράφει το novinite:
The increased interest towards Bulgarian citizenship is attributed to the country's accession to the EU.
Over 60,000 applications for Bulgarian passports pile up at the "Bulgarian Citizenship" directorate at the Justice Ministry.
Some of them date as early as 2006 and the boom is attributed to the increased interest towards Bulgarian citizenship after the country's accession to the EU.
It is estimated that in 2007 only, over 10,000 "Macedonians" have received Bulgarian citizenship.
The Directorate informs that their work has been seriously impeded by the fact that 60% of the documents to prove Bulgarian origins are fake, thus the necessity of expert verifications delaying the decision. In addition, the procedure to grant Bulgarian citizenship requires that the applications are examined by other institutions such as the Agency for Bulgarians Abroad.
The Justice Ministry is planning to request additional employees to help with the processing of the applications and to ask that individuals submit the application in person not through middleman companies.
For people living abroad, the applications must be submitted with diplomatic and consular representations of Bulgaria in order to eliminate, at the very beginning of the procedure, the invalid or incomplete documents and reduce the possibility of corruption practices, according to the Justice Ministry.
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=106899