Monthly Archives: May 2013

UK unreasonably fears Bulgarian entry into Schengen

Mina Boycheva 17/05/2013

In the last two months have been heard various arguments for and against the entry on Bulgaria into the Schengen zone. But is this fear reasonable? No doubts the debate whether Bulgaria and Romania should enter the passport-free zone will get hotter in the next months that follow. It is expected that the two countries will become members of the agreement early next year. This led to fears in Britain over the immigration wave that is expected to reach the country.

There are many Bulgarians who are working in the United Kingdom for years, paying their taxes.

Bulgarians however find this fear as offensive. The truth is that there are many gypsies who would seek for a way to enter UK, so if the British authorities are afraid of that they can introduce a simple English language test and find out who has a real reason to move to UK and has made efforts and who has not. As for the immigrants, there are many Bulgarians who are working in the United Kingdom for years, paying their taxes. The people that are now living in Bulgaria are people who want to change their country to the better and they want one thing as far as Schengen is concerned – freedom to travel when they want to and no bureaucracy. They are fed up of being treated as untrustworthy, second hand people. Hopefully, soon this will stop.

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The office market outside Sofia city

Mina Boycheva 17/05/2013

The financial crises had its impact on the office market outside the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. If we have to describe the offices market situation outside Sofia with one word only, this would be: frozen. The lack of interest from the business in the rest of the cities in the country led to a drop in the average sales levels of the offices. Nowadays, an office in a nice building that is not placed in Sofia city is below 850 Euro per square meter. According to the brokers from the real estate agencies, this is so because of the lack of companies and investors who are willing to buy or rent such office premises. Behind the bad results stays the poor economics of the country, which has no increase in the last few years and that prevents the business from making investments.

The cities that still evoke the interest of the companies when it comes to rental of offices and apartments are Plovdiv and Varna. These are the two biggest cities in the country after the capital Sofia.

The cities that still evoke the interest of the companies when it comes to rental of offices and apartments are Plovdiv and Varna. These are the two biggest cities in the country after the capital Sofia. There are a few office buildings there, but the interest is not as it should be and the demand is not serious. A rumor goes, according to which certain outsourcing companies will enter the country but will settle in the cities of Varna and Plovdiv, rather than in Sofia. One big outsourcing company from German already moved its offices to Plovdiv. Even so, the investors who are heading towards Sofia are looking for rental premises of around 300 sq.m, while those in Varna for example are looking for much smaller offices around 50-60 sq.m. The real estate specialists say that the office market outside Sofia will improve once the entire economics in the country faces better times.

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