Some 135,000 asylum seekers submitted applications on the territory of Europe in the period January – October, or 50 percent more on the previous year. The strong migration pressure over the last couple of years in Bulgaria was registered as well. That was made clear at the Sofia-held international conference, named Migration Challenges to Bulgaria as an EU External Border.

“The long-term goal of the government is the creation of a unitary migration structure and the adoption of a unitary migration law, uniting at a national level the many existing at the moment legislative acts,” said in an interview for Radio Bulgaria Deputy Interior Minister Krasimir Tsipov:

“In the short term the government will work on the update of the Migration, Asylum and Integration Strategy 2011- 2020,” he went on to say. “The work of the National Council on Migration Policy will be really urgently restored, as the latter had been shut down in the beginning of 2014 by the government of Plamen Oresharski without any reasoning. The Migration Directorate will be separated from the Border Police Chief Directorate within short terms.”

The short term perspective demands the total change of the Asylum Act and the one on foreign nationals. The creation of a unitary migration structure and law is necessary, uniting at the national level the many legislative acts. Krasimir Tsipov is convinced in the necessity of urgent actions for harmonization of the national legislative base with the European legislation via the implementation of two EU directives, transposed into one package with a new law on asylums and refugees.

According to the deputy interior minister the common practice of sending police officers from inside the state to the border weakens the security system, as crime rates go up this way. That is why the number of Border Police Chief Directorate officers is to be increased.

“At the moment the interior ministry is preparing the documents necessary for the proposal to the Council of Ministers for the construction of other 131 km of the wire fence along the border with Turkey,” Krassimir Tsipov went on to say. “I hope there will be results within 2015. The facility would be useful in a combination with other practices. One of them is the return of refugees. Unfortunately over the past couple of years Bulgaria cannot praise with significant results in that direction,” Tsipov said.

In his words, the good basis of 2009 – 2013 was not used in the best way within the crisis with the Syrian refugees. The 30-km-long fence along the border with Turkey could have been an adequate measure, if money had been spared from the budget on the so-called voluntarily return. Bulgaria still hasn’t got programs for this activity, which to be funded with money from the state. Tsipov is convinced that after the entering into force of the EU – Turkey Readmission Agreement, signed last year, the migration pressure will be eased. The dialogue with the diplomatic and consular representations of states from the region of North Africa is no less important, according to the deputy minister, as there are quite many migrants from those countries. If these people are voluntarily returned to their countries of origin, the number of asylum seekers to Bulgaria will be reduced.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev