Bulgaria writes new chapter in long story of demographic decline | Hacker News Reader

Bulgaria writes new chapter in long story of demographic decline

balkaninsight.com

139 pointsalberto-m142 comments

Bulgaria is a disaster due to being on the crossroads of the East, West, Russia, and Turkey and the multitude of geopolitical and economic interests andalso on the way of the drug channels from the Middle East to Europe. The Balkan mentality, greatly twisted in the half millennium of Ottoman rule, does not help much either. Things are much worse than what the numbers show, unfortunately! The kleptocratic governments are covered up by the US and EU just so that we can limit the influence of Russia in Bulgaria. Anyway, the moral, mental, and health decline is much worse than the demographic one! From a great example in the Soviet Bloc, we turned into the worst example in the EU! Neither the West, nor Russia has interest in Bulgaria being a modern country, because poor slaves are pulled by the nose much better!

Edit: I'm Bulgarian, I live in California since 1999, but I spend 2-3 months every summer in Bulgaria and witness the constant decline every time.

Ottomans have been gone for 200 years now, haven’t they?

Full independence from the Ottoman Empire was achieved in 1908.

Looks like the fear and loathing is still there in Bulgaria.

There's a lot of lingering resentment in that whole general area, even after all these years.

Some of it is justified. Most of the satellite countries had to pay tribute (taxes) to the empire, money that could have been used instead for self-development. Compound this issue over centuries, and maybe you can understand why people are not happy about that part of history.

Less than a 100 (Ottoman Empire was dissolved in 1922), though Bulgaria went independent from them in 1908.

Yeah, true, but that terrible rule has left huge scars in the mentality.

the turks have their own party in Bulgaria and they shuttle people from all over the go and vote.

Since the last Russo-Turkish War that ended (1878) with de facto independence of Bulgaria from Ottoman empire, Russia continuously tried to turn Bulgaria into its vassal state and finally succeeded in 1944. These attempts include false patriotism that hails Russia as liberator. So the slave mentality continued uninterrupted.

Edit: saviour->liberator, added 1878

The Ottomans have been gone for less time than the US has been free of slavery. African Americans, as a group, are still struggling. I don't see why an entire nation should be recovered.

Comparing Bulgarians 200 years ago to african slaves in Usa is quite weird. Blaming Ottomans for the todays Bulgaria's all problems is beyond ridiculous, and maybe the sign of the real problem.

Would you prefer a comparison to Haiti, which gained independence 100 years before Bulgaria?

Did Bulgaria have huge indemnity to pay like Haiti?

The government has slowly sold off anything good in Bulgaria, water facilities, power plants etc. It's sad to see such a beautiful country in decline. I can say it is definitely better than it was in the 90s. After joining in EU it has gotten fairly pricey as well.

Sold off to whom?

to the олигарси?

My outside impression of EE common wisdom last century:

1980's: hmm, maybe the capitalists were right about the communists all along.

1990's: hmm, maybe the communists were right about the capitalists all along.

homo homini lupus

Edit: for the downvoters, what is incorrect? I did state it was an "outside impression," and therefore would appreciate factual correction from people who were there, so I can update my models.

As one can tell from the latin phrase, it's been a reasonable maximum entropy estimate for at least the last couple of thousand years (and probably even the last fifty thousand).

Someone who actually speaks bulgarian can probably easily find a much better source, I tried "списък с български олигарси" and got:

https://anonybulgaria.wordpress.com/2013/05/19/олигарси-в-бъ...

which probably has a few specific answers to ur-whale's original question, "to whom?"

Private interests, both inside the country and multinationals? The EU's promotion of privatisation is probably its biggest drawback. Here's hoping the UK's departure will reverse that trend.

As of early 2018 the EU was still mostly on the "privatise all the things" train though, sadly.

The Balkan mentality, greatly twisted in the half millennium of Ottoman rule, does not help much either.

I don't think this sort of ethnic essentialism is at all necessary to explain Bulgaria's current problems. It seems especially misplaced given Bulgarian Turks and muslims were subjected to ethnic cleansing quite recently, in the decade before the horrors in neighbouring Yugoslavia.

Petko Slaveykov's famous line 'не сме народ, а мърша' was written in 1875. The fact that it's becoming more literally true than he meant it is hardly the fault of the Ottoman Empire.

For those who don't speak Bulgarian (like me), google translate of "не сме народ, а мърша" is "we are not a people, but a carcass". Though I'm sure a native speaker would probably have a better translation.

It's good enough for government work! I didn't translate it because it can come off as far too inflammatory - it happens to be a line from a well-known poem by one of the founders of modern Bulgarian written literature.

That attitude is quite common in Eastern and central Europe. When I, as a Brit, lived in Hungary I often heard Hungarians apologising for the “Hungarian mentality” or “hungarian thinking” when something went wrong or appeared ill-conceived.

Absolutely. Here's a Bulgarian example

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Ganyo

But despite getting the works 500 years ago, it's more than a little silly to blame it on the Turks.

> it's more than a little silly to blame it on the Turks.

Not somebody who would be ready to unconditionally defend Bulgarians, but here I don't agree at all.

The "Turks" weren't there "500 years ago" they were there for more than 500 years and were there even 200 years ago, and during these centuries all the "non-Turks" lived in the constant very strong discrimination, across the huge empire that included a big part of Mediterranean:

https://cdn.britannica.com/89/4789-050-B6176F52/Expansion-Ot...

It's not an excuse but a fact. I know it's today fashionable to ignore centuries lasting discrimination of huge swaths of population, but it's wrong.

they were there for more than 500 years

I think that qualifies you for not a 'they'. That's an 'us'.

Yeah not sure of of it's historically unique but 100 years ago, the Ottoman, Austro Hungarian empires fell apart. If it weren't for the communists the Russian Empire would have. And yet it didn't last yet another 70 years. And the British Empire broke up over the mid twenties century.

That said the Ottoman Empire seems like a badly run affair for a long time.

I grew up in a neighboring country, so I understand most of the things you're saying.

I'm just a little uncomfortable with the expression "moral decline". In the vast majority of cases when I've seen it used, it was just rhetoric. Maybe you can clarify?

The moral of knowing you're being robbed in daylight and not doing anything to resist it. Re-electing the same thieves, just because there are no alternatives and you have to choose between blatant thieves. And so on. The moral thing is a revolution and swat these insects out of existence!

> ...being on the crossroads of the East, West, Russia, and Turkey...

Could being at a crossroads become an asset? What do you think of the projected Belt & Road route that passes through bulgaria between turkey and romania?

(my bet is that the northern route is much more likely to happen, but a newly constructed middle route would have the advantage of not necessarily needing the existing gauge swaps)

A key might be the distinction between controlling the traffic vs. being controlled (or simply ignored or overwhelmed) by it.

There are examples of both wealthy and extraordinarily corrupt transshippment points, though I'm not sure what factors distinguish these.

Starting with the first sentence, I have 1 single word for this - bollocks.

> Google “Bulgaria” and “demography” and you will rapidly learn that journalists and analysts have for years been reporting that the country’s population is one of the fastest shrinking in the world.

Looking at our press and journalists, the first thing you need to keep in mind is that they rely solely on sensationalism: "everything is getting worse, we are the most miserable and oppressed nation in the entire multiverse". Essentially fox news, bild and daily mail. Because this is what sells best. This is what gets facebook shares, comments and likes, simple as that. It appears as if everyone has forgotten what the 90's looked like and what queuing at 4 in the morning to get a bottle of milk was, daily shooting in the streets and hyperinflation. Because this is what most of the 90's were. None of which is happening anymore.

The population decline is a phenomenon which can be observed in most of Europe, the big difference is that there is very small migration from anywhere here which makes the issue more obvious (on paper) then in other countries. There are a million and one reasons for this, like bad reputation(see the paragraph above), language barrier which is a problem when it comes to daily life and realistically racism, which may be a problem outside the capital(even some large areas in the capital as well).

Families in most modern societies are shrinking. And while there was a lot of immigration in the late 90's and 2000's, in recent years, the numbers have gone down drastically and there is a factor which no journalist will dare speak of because it goes against the "everything is worse than ever" rhetoric. The number of people who have returned after a certain amount of time spent abroad(me being one of them). I was one of the first that fled back for multiple reasons. And while the question "but why" was pretty common back then, no one has asked me that question in over 5 years.

While you can take umbrage with the tone of the piece, it seems your concern for the 'bias' in the article has maybe led you astray with respect to the fundamentals.

Bulgaria unquestionably has a demographic problem related to emigration that is completely different from 'the rest of Europe'. Since 2000 (after the 'ugly times') Bulgaria has gone from 8 -> 7 million.

This is not derived from 'family sizes' - this is squarely a problem of emigration and it has everything to do with the social and economic conditions there vis-a-vis other places in Europe.

What needs to be considered is how the EU of the last 20 years, which is a merging of Rich/Poor Europe has resulted in the obliteration of healthy working people and educated class from E. Europe overall, to the benefit of the 'rich west'. There may be some neoliberal advantages, in that, those people are perhaps able to achieve better employment and income with a 'greater net productivity for Europe' - but it's not going to benefit Bulgaria a whole lot.

Much like businesses make short term decisions on employee work spaces because the 'sticker price' of cubes or offices is so much greater than 'open tables' and whereupon the productivity if private spaces is hard to measure ... it seems the 'free money' flowing from the EU is just too tangible to consider in the face of the more 'strategic' concern of mass emigration.

As soon as you start to value those intangibles, it would seem that an economic union might actually have made more sense than a social one.

This is a very simplistic view. Keep in mind that before 2007 emigration was borderline impossible. The first time I set my foot on foreign soil was in 2002 in Greece. And that was for a holiday with an invitation which went through the Greek embassy and a copy of my parents' income to verify that our intention was indeed to go on a holiday. A process which took around 4-5 months. So once the gates were opened, understandably, many fled. I know a few people who fled before that and many of them spent years living in migrant camps and this isn't for everyone.

I'd argue that the vast majority of the people who have left/are leaving are not educated. Statistically most of them are construction workers, taxi drivers and so on. Yes, arguably some of them have education. I know one which was an electrical engineer but I'm not joking when I say that he has no idea what the difference between direct current and alternating current is. Hence the reason why he ended up delivering pizzas. Which is not to say there aren't educated people who have emigrated but that's not a real issue:

And the counter argument - people like me who went there young, studied abroad and returned afterwards. Which was the case for many of the people around me. 60 people out of 90 in my class from school went to study abroad. 59 returned. And believe me, when I left I had no intention of returning and neither did most of the others. But things have changed and at a certain point it made more sense to make that step. Which is arguably one of the best decisions I've personally ever made. And for those 59 people, we were the early adopters of a huge wave of people to do that. The one that didn't return? Well honestly, a tiny country has very little to offer to a world class cancer researcher. I see nothing wrong with that, on the contrary - bravo.

At this point I'd say the biggest problem the country is facing is not economical, or political but... I can't even call it social. Mental is probably the right word. The notion that the grass is greener everywhere else. The idea every country has it better. And annoyingly that comes from people who have never lived anywhere else or even worse-never even been anywhere else. The problems you face elsewhere are simply different and as an alien, they are much MUCH worse and often you have even less people to rely on. Been there, done that.

I get your point, but I would say that you've only touched on the root issue:

> emigration and it has everything to do with the social and economic conditions there vis-a-vis other places in Europe.

and:

> Much like businesses make short term decisions [...]

I think everyone makes short term decisions. On the one side there's "the country", as in "those in power". They've chosen a path of rampant corruption, embezzlement, etc because they could get their hands on a lot of money very quickly. Even though I doubt this was specifically leur goal, they have instilled a particular kind of climate where people get the feeling that in order to get ahead and be able to do something you have to "know people" and grease a lot of hands.

Of course, most educated people don't exactly enjoy this and don't feel like waiting around for years and years for this to change. So they look after their own short term interest and move some place where this situation isn't as strong. Also, feeling somewhat disconnected from this way of doing things, they won't have a particularly strong wish to help "their country".

And as someone who's family left an other EE country before it was admitted in the EU, I've seen that the "educated" didn't wait around for their countries to join in order to move. Many, many people left during the '90s to the States and Canada. Sure, I bet with the EU it's much easier to do this, but "the smart guys", those who can actually benefit their home countries didn't have that hard of a time going elsewhere.

I get your irritation at the start of the article, but give it a full read: it does cover multiple sides of the issue and it does point out multiple things to be pleased or optimistic about. It is not as simplistic as this first sentence has made you believe.

Perhaps. It was 3 in the morning and I didn't go in depth. Largely because I felt the rhetoric I was referring to, which is the whole reason I refuse to read local news outlets or watch news or go on social media.

The article features a misleading infographic starting at ~3M which makes me question its credibility or whether it was written with some agenda in mind. According to my experience Western reporting on Eastern affairs tends to do that.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions and blame western reporting. I don't rule it out entirely but they could very well be taking those numbers from our media/sources which goes back to my original supply and demand argument. Our history has been re-written multiple times between 1944 and now and much of the data you'll find in the books since then has been written by someone with an agenda. Data from the periods before that were destroyed the day the red army set foot here. Coincidentally I own an almanac of Bulgaria from 1898 which survived (my family literally hid it in the woods, along with many other books which would have been confiscated and destroyed otherwise). Now they all proudly sit in my library and I'm certain that if there are other copies left, they are not more than 2 or 3. The official numbers which we are presented with now are very different from what this book states. And given my knowledge on my own family's history, I'm willing to believe the data in the almanac is a fairly accurate representation of the reality back then, which is arguably comparable to what we are experiencing now: not perfect but overall pretty good.

I am confused by the negativity expressed in this comment section. This article presents a fairly positive outlook on how things are changing in Bulgaria (when you wrap your head around the idea that for a small country it is not the total number but the structure of the population that matters). The article mentions a number of serious outstanding challenges, but it also lists multiple reasons to be pleased with how things have changed.

this is because the Bulgarians, unlike the Germans for example, are capable of (social) self-criticism and self-irony.

Are you saying the negativity is ironic or sarcastic? That sounds like a cheap excuse.

Self-criticism and self-irony are also extremely important, but they need to be constructive, not just self-flagellation.

But your claim that Germans are not self-critical now makes me think your comment was sarcastic and I missed the sarcasm. I apologize if that is the case.

No young bulgarian-australians would go home permanently, based on the experience of the one who did, tried to helm a Rom, wound up on a stabbing murder charge, and has been held against high court judgements he should be allowed to go home, all because the dead person was the son or relative of a senior Bulgarian minister. Revenge politics writ large.

If they want to reverse a demographic decline, they will need to respect fundamental rule of law.

Due the the typo (helm a Rom => help a Roma), I couldn't follow, but some Googling turned up Jock Palfreeman [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Palfreeman

"A Roma" or "a Romani person"?

The same source, if explored for Roma/Romani:

In the Romani language, Rom is a masculine noun, meaning 'man of the Roma ethnic group' or 'man, husband', with the plural Roma.

That of course was complete bs. The story of him trying to help a fictional Roma was fabricated after the fact to save his ass. What he did is he got drunk and stabbed somebody. Bulgaria does have issues with the rule of law but that particular drunken hooligan is not part of it.

You were there? Otherwise, your of course is no more or less compelling than my newspaper sourced statements.

His blood alcohol was 0.015%. That's less than a single beer for an adult male.

Killing someone under the influence is not an act which would attract lenience from the law in any developed country. The media, especially in Australia, has not been great at reflecting the incident in all of its subtlety.

Bulgarian justices don't think the conviction was safe. Bulgarian politicians want him kept in jail. For example, somebody is dead, but convictions for manslaughter are different to murder. Lots of convictions for manslaughter are accepted every year worldwide and attract the lenience they deserve. This case has been politicised.

His blood alcohol was 0.015%. A single beer would put you higher than that. Having less than one beer isn't "under the influence".

People in HN might be interested to know that Bulgaria has one of the (second place I think) biggest difference between average salary in IT and average salary for everybody else.

Being part of the EU it’s easy to find an IT job, with all the work from home initiatives now more than ever. SO being the poorest country in EU you can get to some ridiculous standards of living if you are in IT.

And in the recent five years or so the bigger cities in the country have upped their game quite a bit. Before the covid crisis I liked to hang out with foreigners visiting the country and all of them mentioned it being a very positive experience. They often start researching rent prices and such.

I guess that is true for any Eastern European country, especially if there's an easy way to avoid taxation.

The cost of life is low for anyone working in IT, especially remotely. However, I wonder if the infrastructure makes it worthwhile. The roads in Sofia have probably not been repaired since 90s. And there's no public transportation routes available in Google Maps.

I agree that public transportation leaves a lot to be desired, however roads in Sofia are actually not that bad. The bigger problem is traffic congestion. It makes it impractical to commute to the other side of the city for work (e.g. ~1hr in each direction) and hence severely limits employment opportunities in case you live in your own house.

With respect to taxation, I wouldn't say it is easy to avoid. It surely is for those that are close to the governing class, but not for the average Joe/Company. Quite the contrary. If you consider doing business in Bulgaria, I would advice against keeping your capital and intellectual property in a Bulgarian corporation. Everything that makes > EUR ~1M revenue/year shows up on the radar and then you either have to play on their rules (e.g. sponsor a political party, give them a share of your company at their terms) or you will be chased down by the huge government repressive apparatus (tax authorities etc).

> And there's no public transportation routes available in Google Maps.

I don't think this signifies anything though. It's up to the cities to decide if they want to publish the routes and timetables, and many choose not to. Including western cities, such as Montpellier and others in France.

But also ordering a taxi didn't work for me, since you have to call a phone number, where they promise a taxi at the airport, and it doesn't arrive. I assume Amazon or anything like that isn't present as well.

Yes, I would actually argue that developers earn more than they would in Germany, Belgium or France.

But not compared to FAANG in the West Coast part of the US. I looked at coming back, but it turned out that I am leaving 2/3 of my income on the table. Even with the cost of living differences this was not justifiable. France or Belgium were not better either. Europe has an underappreciation of engineers overall. The differences in the disposable income are staggering.

Yes, nothing compares to USA. I’ve lived in USA and I would gladly live there again but I have a large family here that I am very fond of and it’s not a option for me. Still for developers in central and Eastern Europe Western Europe doesn’t make sense financially. You make same amount of money and everything is cheaper.

At some point, the EU has to see a pattern of degradation and corruption, and start engaging actively with the people of the countries, instead of just expecting places such as Bulgaria and Romania to wake up and decide to be rich and developed out of nowhere.

Great point! I'd generalize this and say you have to do this with any minority group that is "below" some desired level (within a country, community, etc.). And concretely, you need to invest in access to money and high quality education first.

You’re both right. You have to empower the disenfranchised through active engagement and investment, but also use financial repercussions against those who would continue to subjugate another class. Without both, success is much more difficult.

Fight corruption with a financial boot. I imagine Bulgaria needs the EU more than the EU needs Bulgaria. This requires more spine in Brussels though.

The non-elite in Bulgaria need access to the capital and economic opportunities of the EU; the Bulgarian elite already have access.

Also, economic sanctions inevitably hurt the poor more than the rich; this is the case in Venezuela, Iran, and many other countries across the world

You are right, but I would like to point out that this very article lists multiple ways Bulgaria is already improving. It is not all doom and gloom, even if there are outstanding serious problems.

The EU has also created conditions to move the health, young workers and the educated class out of there, and into the the West, which is an existential shock to their system. It's hard to institute reform when the people most able to commit to it have been given 2x their paycheck to go elsewhere.

The EU knew the state of Bulgaria and Romania before inviting them to join.

The general idea was that a certain amount of nation-scale wealth transfer (e.g. via infrastructure projects, ag subsidies) and individual wealth transfer (e.g. remittances of people working abroad) would help bring the former Eastern Bloc countries up to speed, gradually remove corruption and transform towards democracy.

Let's keep it at "the idea was nice, the actual execution was... flawed".

Just out of curiosity, when you say actual execution do you mean the execution done by EU bodies or the execution of the government(s) of Bulgaria?

Both to be honest, and that's not just for Bulgaria/Romania but all former Yugoslavian and USSR countries, and even Western-allied countries such as Greece and Italy.

The EU failed to predict local government's corruption or outright destructive behavior (e.g. Visegrad blockade in refugee questions), its foundational assumption was that member states were all aligned towards one common goal and not behave actively destructive. Local governments failed to uphold their values and more often than not saw the EU as a cash cow waiting to be exploited.

Romania GDP per capita grew more that 6 times in the last 30 years. Talk about being clueless:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...

Still on the subject of Romania, no, it's not the mythical EU funds that fuel this growth, because the funds are tiny compared to the size of the economy and 2/3 end up not being spent at all because extremely strict anti-corruption measures that make it a massive pain in the ass to try and access EU funds. Government debt is at 35% of GDP, growth rate is constantly among best 3 in EU, constantly over 5%, unemployment under 4%, wages grow between 5-7% annually, inflation is under 3%, criminality is way lower than the West etc. Is that bad? And I think Romania could do even better if not for EU's idiotic trade policy and regulation bullshit.

Hi, I'm a Romanian.

It may not be EU's funds that fuel our growth (although they help), however not sure if you're aware but the growth you're talking of happened after we entered EU, not before.

Before EU we were at the same level as Moldova. Our growth is perfectly correlated with our EU membership. If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.

And it's easy to see why. In spite of regulations, compared to the 90s we have a market to sell our products to. We no longer build tractors that nobody wants. And we exported our poverty, the poor and uneducated becoming seasonal workers, that no longer need a passport and visa to travel and that then send money home.

Also the anti-corruption policies you mentioned have been fueled by EU membership too, things moving under foreign pressure. Speaking of which it's not actually anti-corruption measures that prevent us from accessing EU's funds but our government's incompetence.

We disagree. I think Romania would be the shithole that it was in the 90s if it wasn't for EU and its "trade policy and regulation bullshit". The arrangement was and continues to be mutually beneficial.

Romanian too.

> If you want to see what would have happened without EU, look at Moldova.

Heck - if you want to see what would have happened without EU, look all around: Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia. Serbia and Ukraine were miles ahead of us until we joined the EU.

Sure, I mentioned Moldova due to very similar geopolitical situation, culture and ethnicity. They even speak the same language.

I am getting impression that you are implying that living in Serbia is terrible, or at least worse than living in Romania.

I live in Belgrade and I like it here. I visited Bucharest 2 years ago for EuroBSDcon and I liked it as well. Belgrade hosted EuroBSDcon 2 years earlier. I haven't noticed much difference between developed and historical parts of Belgrade and Bucharest. I noticed Bucharest's decayed parts are in much worse state than Belgrade's.

Belgrade is not representative of all of Serbia and you should get out into the provinces. As someone who spends pretty much each summer cycling in Romania and Serbia, I agree with the OP: in so much of Serbia south of Belgrade, the tertiary roads (which were the pride of Yugoslavia) are often no longer maintained and municipal buildings are decaying. In Romania, conversely, a lot of provincial roads have been upgraded and municipal infrastructure renovated thanks to EU funds.

I got the impression, not that Serbia was terrible, but that the advantage Serbia has over Bulgaria is much less marked than it was earlier.

I don't know your region at all, but for instance mid 80's Računari was a regular magazine, while all I can find for the same period in Bulgaria is an Isotimpex calendar:

https://i.etsystatic.com/6486428/r/il/2fbacd/2104028442/il_1...

(of course, ghits are a lousy way of judging, but since we have many EE voices in this thread I figure being wrong on the internet is a good way to get better information.)

I generally agree. Back in 80's, Romanian and Bulgarian construction workers lined up near "Park of Vuk" in Belgrade in hope to get daily construction site gig for cash. They aren't there since 90's when shit hit the fan.

Best wine I ever bought in supermarket was in Bucharest, not Bordeaux. Tastiest dinner I ever had in a restourant was in Sofia, not Paris. Best nightclubbing in Belgrade, not Berlin.

Yeah, I'm hardcore Balkanian :)

Belgrade is pretty nice man; I didn't mean to imply Serbia is terrible - just that it has fallen behind. It used to be that Serbia was the neighbour we looked up to; nowadays... it just doesn't seem better anymore.

Also - Bucharest is terrible, compared with its potential, because we've had extremely shitty mayors. But if things change now (and it's not out of the question!), it can really take off. The GDP of the region is already way higher than Belgrade, I believe (but, the natural setting is way worse, that much is true).

Growth happened before EU accession in 2007 and it was faster and more robust as it's pretty obvious from the graph I linked. What triggered our economic expansion was reforms that began when we almost defaulted, around the time the first non-Communist government (Democratic Convention in 1996) took power. We stopped printing money to cover huge budget deficits and got rid of hyperinflation. We privatized, simplified and decreased taxation, opened the country to foreign investment, stopped in large part protectionist measures, massively deregulated the economy etc. From a closed economic model inspired by North Korea, we now have an economy that's more free than most of Europe, including our regional competitors like Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, Russia or Turkey. UE big government career bureaucrats that can't even "fix" their own failing countries, had nothing to teach us and have no merit in what we have achieved.

Not going to happen, especially in this climate with sovereignty and nationalism demands in rise.

In EU, countries preserve most of their sovereignty and all EU can do is cutting funds and no country will give up sovereignty to enable EU interfere with domestic matters.

Bulgaria is like that because Bulgarians like it this way, EU cannot enforce anything because it doesn't have the authority to make Bulgaria being governed like Germany or Netherlands.

In a union, how can poor exist without rich, how can rich exist without poor?

See, people will leave their country for better country if there is opportunity to do so which is plenty in EU when you compare the average quality of life of a German Vs Bulgarian

If Bulgaria is losing its people, maybe it's the intended effect of the free movement of labor?

Back in the late 80s when I was spending days hacking on USSR-made clones of Apple II in my school, lots of components (floppy drives and diskettes, monitors) was made in Bulgaria. I wonder what happened to then most technologically advanced country of Eastern Block?

You mean Pravetz or actual Apple replicas made to confuse buyers?

I mean Agat, a 6502-based desktop computer developed in Novosibirsk: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agat_(computer)

It was able to run some Apple II software after applying small patches to I/O and video subroutines.

If you played around with the Agat you should write some blogs. Agat seems really interesting from what I've been able to learn about it - it was like a 32-column Apple II with SECAM color.

Yes, it was. Not in the mood for retroblogging yet, maybe 5-10 years later, thanks for the idea)

Czechoslovakian experience: the indigenous high tech supply chain could not survive the combination of wild privatisation (new owners often just sold everything off and pocketed the proceeds instead of development) and need to pivot to products attractive to completely different markets than before (unresolved licensing of intellectual property did not help there).

Some insights: after the communist regime fell, the country was taken over by mafia organizations and most of the old secret services took many places in politics. i.e. there was a seeming democracy serving mostly the people playing against the law and same old and corrupt guys that used to be part of the communist party. As a result, many capable and smart people just left as soon as they could. Unfortunately, that is still the fact - the country is run by the mafia and it has the highest level of corruption in EU.

How does this compare to the fall of the USSR, and the rise of oligarchs in post-communist Russia? Very similar?

Superficially similar but one of these was the disintegration of a nuclear superpower and multi-national empire. Bulgaria is a small country in the Balkans. Its population is smaller than that of NYC.

Bulgaria is in top 10 EU countries by area. It contains the entire Balkan mountains after which the Balkan peninsula is named.

Аз съм българче, oбичам наште планини зелени. It's still a small country.

Territorially, Bulgaria is close to Greece and larger than Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Czechia. It holds 16th position among 51 countries in Europe. High-income countries such as Denmark, Ireland and Switzerland also have lower population than NYC.

What is your point?

What is your point?

I thought I made it clearly but I'm happy to repeat. The post-Soviet-collapse socio-political developments in Bulgaria are (for a lot of obvious reasons) almost, but not quite, entirely unlike those of the actual Soviet collapse.

One of these obvious reasons is that Bulgaria is a small country. Especially compared to the Soviet Union. Which was a big country. In fact, the biggest one.

Yes, as much as demographic decline is a big problem, the bigger one is the total and deep institutional corruption.

Its always corruption. Everywhere that's not doing well isn't doing well due to corruption. Corruption is the most important thing to fight and keep in check.

There's actually an inverse correlation between corruption and GDP, and a few studies showing that lowering of corruption directly boosted economic prosperity.

I wish more people actively brought up corruption, literally the most fundamental thing to fight.

Funny thing about corruption...It's very hard to quantify and as someone who spent couple of years living in China I would say there is no link between corruption and economic growth.

I would say that the difference is that China's elites are interested in China's economic growth. They want to see China big and powerful and for that they need to sacrifice some of that greed (and really beyond certain amount of money it's about power and prestige not about endless $$$ on your bank account).

The corrupted politicians and people are only interested in enriching themselves at the expense of everything else. For them being a client state of either Russia or the EU makes no difference because they know that to reverse the course of the country it takes more than one generation and nobody has time for that especially when you are buying your next super yacht.

And that's the problem with the EU. It will happily turn a blind eye to corruption as long as the exports keep flowing.

Exports from Germany imported to poor member state you mean

Hungary: Export surplus to Germany https://oec.world/en/profile/country/hun

Bulgaria: Export surplus to Germany https://oec.world/en/profile/country/bgr

Romania: Balanced trade https://oec.world/en/profile/country/rou

Would you mind clarifying what you're referring to?

This is because of the exported feedstocks. If you go to Bulgaria (or any other Balkan country) you will see the land drown in german goods.

Is this a bad thing? We get to use the money from the export surplus to modernize other industries. It is not surprising that a poorer country will be in the agriculture business as it develops. For a positive change, see how the software industry in Sofia has been growing. It will take time to revive mid and heavy industries.

It's a bad thing if you dont take advantage of it. The problem is the Eastern European countries never did. They never stood a chance in the first place.

You need to own the value chain if you want to get richer.

I'd bet India also had an export surplus to the UK when it was a colony.

So, thank you for shedding light on the whole of the German plot. I hadn't realized that the Eastern Europe countries were admitted to the EU so the German industry could source components and raw materials without import fees.

So, OP complained about an import surplus. You complain about an export surplus.

The only two alternatives are no trade, or a perfectly balanced trade. Neither one are realistic goals.

The fact that Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were given membership to the EU is baffling.

Fast forward to today, Liviu Dragnea is serving time for abuse of power, Bulgaria is still dealing with corruption and the Hungary government continues its assault on democracy.

It's beggar's belief why any of these nations membership has not been suspended.

Isn’t EU’s top anti corruption official Bulgarian? I don’t think she got there by being bad at her job

No. She is Romanian. As a result, Romania's GDP was going in a much better trajectory before the local politicians tried to stop her and bring the country back on the old corruption path.

The old elite fighting back was inevitable.

I am optimistic however. These things happen in a two steps forward, one step back fashion. And unfortunately for the corrupt in this country the geenie is already out of the bottle.

You'll see in the following years.

My Romanian bretheren tend to be more pessimistic. I recommend this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34890015-factfulness

Liviu Dragnea (from Romania) serving time in prison is a good example of us having a functional justice system.

While the arrangement has been very beneficial for us, let's not forget that the EU does need a market to sell inferior products at a premium and they do need our seasonal workers and our educated as well, who would otherwise flee to the US and elsewhere.

I cannot speak for other countries, but seeing the vitriol here gives me a deja vu of the anti-Romanians Brexit campaign.

You know, it was hilarious seeing the UK begging us to send them workers in this Covid crisis ;-)

I wouldn't overlook the geopolitical aspect, specifically on the russian front.

I read the article but I didn't see a definition of the problem. Fewer Bulgarians means what?

It means whole towns with no children, and older people wasting away in agony because there is no one left around to care for them.

I am a Russian who moved to Australia. My parents kept voting for Putin for last 20 years, were never politically engaged and never supported the opposition.

If Bulgaria situation is any similar then for those older people that agony is of their own creation.

it seems to me things get better as the population reduces, i’m not sure why there is a focus on maintaining it or increasing it.

in fact one of the most interesting parts of that article is that discrimination was no longer tenable given that the value of each worker had gone up

The main problem with Bulgaria is mobsters and corruption. Bulgarians tend to be hard working and there are a lot of successful Bulgarians abroad but inside of the country one always has to live in fear that too obvious success will attract the wrong attention and the mobsters which more or less control the courts will just take everything they want from him.

So a lot of the smarter and more ambitious people leave to try to make a living in the west, while the rest try to live and work while being careful not to piss off the wrong person.

On top of that you have the West screwing over the country the usual way the west screws over developing countries. By buying out infrastructure and then raising prices, etc. This they do glove in hand with the mobsters and the corrupt government.

So the result is that most major businesses are oligopolies of some type or another. Either because they have been taken over by the mob or a couple of western conglomerates have bought out all the options. Or combination of the both. Prices are high in comparison to salaries and most Bulgarians live in what one would consider poor conditions. Thus family formation is low.

The EU membership has been very beneficial in putting in infrastructure and the sort. However, EU membership has also brought in a lot of real estate appreciation without a commensurate raise in ability to pay rents.

I think things are improving. Mostly because of software and technology. In my experience Bulgarians seem to value education and hard work so there are a lot of programmers. Also, the mobsters who at this point own all the important real estate, have decided to more or less leave technology companies alone. They have figured out that this will maximize the value of their existing holdings.

Thus there seems to be an unwritten license to run a tech company in Bulgaria. The industry seems to be thriving with native Bulgarian startups and R&D offices being open by major western companies. Lately I have even noticed a trend of expats from western countries going to Bulgaria to do a start up where life is cheaper. Most Bulgarians in the big cities speak some English.

The tech industry also tends to give out decent salaries, so people in that industry do not quite live in poverty. In trendy bars and restaurants in Sofia and Varna you can usually see the mobster crowd and the tech crowd living side by side uneasily giving each other furtive glances.

Thus far the government seems to value and encourage tech business. For example, in contrast to the crumbling roads, Bulgaria seems to have some of the best internet in the world. But the government and their friendly mobsters run the show and they can do anything they want in the future. So my optimism is very measured.

Same is true for most developing countries like India, Pakistan, etc...

The people have control over others through muscle power and threats and law can't reach them as they also control all guardians of law.

"dramatic", "pessimistic".. Hey, isn't it beautiful to have less dense human populations and more room for nature? I mean it's not as if humans were an endangered species

If you can't get past the splash image like me:

http://archive.is/LGCzt

I've never bought into the ruse of an increasing population implying a higher standard of living. Politicians love this as a stagnating economy can appear to be doing better, by pointing to an increased GDP that usually rises with an increased population. They'll never mention how much per capita adjusted for inflation it is. When inequality rises, they'll pretend it's unrelated. Of course the extra stress on the infrastructure, housing, hospitals and schools are all things that their predecessors will have to worry about. They're the first things that conservatives will conventionally not increase funding for.

We measure GDP as it's traditionally an indicator for a standard of living.

why is a declining, human population bad?

Bulgaria is the EU imperialism poster child. Make it impossible to find a job inside the country and blame everything on communists.

Beautiful country though, and the food beats everything I've seen elsewhere.

"All other countries have a mafia, in Bulgaria the mafia has a country."

Can we say the same thing about Mexico and the cartels?

Yes. And their other south of them as well.

All of them the result of US interference, both directly and indirectly via The War on Drugs™.

Your statement that Mexico is a narco-state as a direct consequence of USA fighting against the importers of illegal drugs from Mexico cannot simply be given but clearly requires expounding. And even if it were, the implication is the nation of USA isn't entitled to fight against illegal, anti-social, and violent activity is absurd.

> the implication is the nation of USA isn't entitled to fight against illegal, anti-social, and violent activity is absurd.

If drugs are outlawed, only outlaws will deal in drugs.

The cartels are terrible, evil organizations made up of despicable and desperate human beings. There is nothing good to say about them. But if drugs were strongly regulated, instead of made illegal, and drug addiction treated like an illness, would they even exist?

Latin America has a problem with corruption and the rule of law generally that goes well beyond drugs. I don't really know how to fix it and don't believe anyone else does either. I am certainly willing to support an attempt at legalization since it has a moral basis in "freedom" and such. But the above poster is not wrong. If murder-for-hire, sex trafficking in children, etc are outlawed, then only outlaws will do those too. Meanwhile Canada did not become a weak and corrupt narco state, despite having an even larger border with the US. For that matter Japan's (even stricter) drug laws didn't turn Korea and China or any other neighbor into a narco states. The problem is more complicated than people want to believe.

The cartels would obviously immediately stop chopping up journalists in pieces and would retrain to become car mechanics, bakers, factory workers, etc.

No. But they might have been involved in other, less profitable criminal enterprises (stolen cars, maybe) and had less power and influence than they do now.

It is the US that created the illegal activity, but putting this activity into illegality in the first place. The war on drugs only made the criminal problem in Latin America worse by creating the incentives to become a criminal. Moreover, the US has already been caught dealing directly on drugs (Iran contras), and I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't the last time.

That claim would hold much more water if the US wasn't actively involved in the drug trade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_drug_traffi...

If you like books, I highly recommend "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade"

Or if the US hadn't made its own opioid crisis, which caused skyrocketing demand for hard drugs (and is the result of a pharma industry that is completely out of control) https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-drug-war

Or if the US was in any way concerned with addressing the actual drug consumption crisis.

I'll be charitable and assume you're well-intentioned.

Your argument makes no sense. If the drugs weren't illegal then your whole argument goes up in a puff of smoke.

If you can't prove to me that this "war" is valid, then any premise you base upon it is nullified.

Go ahead, sell me on how the war is about keeping America safe.

> All of them the result of US interference, both directly and indirectly via The War on Drugs™.

It's a little easy to blame everything on the US. You can also factor in the fact they had weak central governments to begin with. A country that has a strong executive power is usually not overrun by cartels.

The Mexican federal government seems to be fairly independent. All the various high-profile corruption cases prove this out, as they generally seem to have been singular installations and conversions of corrupt officials from below, however numerous. I think the problem in Mexico is the sheer inability of the federal government to effectively project its power across the country, both because of lack of resources and because of systemic corruption at the local level. Sometimes this seems to rise to the level of complicity, but I think it's more a reflection of the fear that exposing their impotence through failed enforcement operations would only worsen the situation.

By contrast, the allegations are that Bulgarian political leadership isn't simply in the pocket of the mafia, they are the mafia leadership. It's sort of like in a military coup where the General-cum-President installs all his lieutenants into government office and otherwise changes the system so that the military controls all the levers. That's a quite different situation than in Mexico, and I'm not aware of any analogous situation anywhere else unless you play semantic games--e.g. consider as "mafia" the oligarchs and aristocrats of kleptocratic regimes. Such gross equivocations are great for manipulating outrage, including diversionary outrage--e.g. whataboutism--but not particularly constructive.

> political leadership isn't simply in the pocket of the mafia, they are the mafia leadership

If the mafia becomes the government, technically you can't call them the mafia anymore, because they have become legitimate once they gain political power.

Yeah, well, I don't think that mafia and corruption in a not so rich state are worse than (Euro-) socialism and redistribution on the current Western European scale.

Would you be saying that if you lived there? The millions of emigres seem to prove otherwise.

Emigrant is not the right word. Most of the Bulgarians living abroad, including me, keep their property in Bulgaria and don't sell. They don't cut their connections in the home land, and many of them return at the end of the day.

I have one word for you: Russia.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go jump out the window.

Oh just import few million of refugees, worked everywhere else. /s

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