Bulgarian citizenship – increasingly desirable, but also increasingly more difficult to obtain
Over the past year, the Bulgarian authorities’ reluctance to “grant” Bulgarian citizenship has reached new heights. Indeed, after the demonization of the investment citizenship and now with the “Gleb Mishin” affair, Bulgarian officials seem ready to do just anything, but not to approve an “unsuitable” candidate for citizenship.
Very often, however, there is no objective reason for refusal!
And then it gets scary for the Bulgarian administration. There are no legal obstacles for the candidate to be naturalized. But the “fear” is that if the application is approved and the Minister of Justice sends a proposal to the President to issue a decree for citizenship, it could lead to problems.
Fear has gripped the administration
The administration’s fears are manifold. What will our Euro-Atlantic partners say if citizenship is granted to a candidate they may not like? How will this or that naturalization affect Bulgaria’s Schengen membership?
And last but not least, will the Bulgaria’s new political leaders be happy if Bulgaria “gives” citizenship to people from certain countries?
All this leads to a very unpleasant phenomenon in Bulgaria at the moment. Namely, that the Bulgarian administration is also looking for any possible reason to stop the proceedings and not to issue a decree for the acquisition of citizenship.
And because he who seeks – finds, the Bulgarian administration, reading the Bulgarian citizenship law, as the devil reads the gospel, has found a way to stop practically every applicant for Bulgarian citizenship.
Illegal suspension of the naturalization application until the applicant has first renounced his foreign citizenship
Without going into much detail, here is what is happening: the Bulgarian administration, illegally in our opinion, is massively terminating the naturalization cases of a huge number of foreigners. This is done on the basis that the foreigner has not renounced his or her previous citizenship. Consequently, according to the administration, he is not entitled to obtain Bulgarian citizenship. This problem is described in detail in the articles of Posolstvo.eu:
- Legal analysis of the norm of Art. 1(6) of the Bulgarian Citizenship Act;
- Renunciation of previous citizenship BEFORE obtaining Bulgarian citizenship.
Generally speaking, by using a formal text in the Citizenship Law, the administration massively and, in our opinion, illegally suspends the applications of a huge number of candidates. However, even under this formal text, naturalization proceedings should not be halted. However, instead of complying with the law, which gives the applicant 3 years to renounce his or her previous citizenship, the officials simply suspend all further naturalization actions. And the applicant for Bulgarian citizenship is left to wait… forever.
Lawlessness?
It remains to be seen what the Bulgarian court will have to say. As far as we know, a huge number of court appeals are already being prepared by the leading professionals in the field of Bulgarian citizenship.