Among the priority tasks of the Government that will come into office some time after the July 5 parliamentary elections in Bulgaria should be a coherent policy on the granting of permanent residence and on immigration, and a relook at policy on ownership of property by foreigners.

The current situation in each case continues to be rife with contradictions, especially where these issues relate to each other, a lack of coherence and, overall, needless bureaucracy.

Some credit may be given to the Government for its attempt, as reported in this issue of The Sofia Echo, to facilitate the granting of visas to non-EU nationals who own fixed property in Bulgaria. The idea is a good one, to allow those who have invested in the country to have eased access to their property. However, there continue to be anomalies in this area, such as the bar on foreigners owning ground-level property, a situation customarily resolved by tolerating the fiction of such property being owned by companies in turn owned by the foreigners.

There is a similar anomaly in regard to foreigners who have permanent residence by virtue of marriage to a Bulgarian, where – if they are married in community of property – they share all property ownership half-half.

However, this can be in contradiction to the law that bars foreigners from owning ground-level property. It would give the lawyers a fine time deciding what would happen should the foreigner bequeath half of the property owned through marriage to another foreigner – would such ownership through testate succession be legal? It would seem not, creating an absurd situation. Political courage is needed to rid the statute books of fictions and contradictions regarding foreign ownership of property.

Then there is the question of acquiring citizenship, about which Bulgaria has laws, but no policy, and its leaders have neglected this issue of key strategic importance even though the country’s deepening demographic problems and consequent labour market challenges will not simply go away by themselves.

The time is overdue for Government leaders to consider what kind of Bulgaria there should be in future generations, and set about shaping policies – notably on immigration – to enable that vision to come about.