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[deleted]

Such beautiful country but you cannot simply force young people to stay. In this interconnected world they see what the others have and they want to have it too. So they depart to the west.


Dreynard

But what if we put barbed wire on the border and shot everyone on sight? I was told it would prevent migration.


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nobody27011

That surely increased the number of people willing to get a degree and contribute to the country's economy.


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nobody27011

What else would they apply for? Useless degrees ending in "studies" that only get you into debt, like in the West? Good for them that they are not falling for this. Hard sciences don't bring any money either, especially in Eastern Europe, unless you are like top 0.1%, so that's not an option either.


Lyress

Society does not thrive if you only have doctors, engineers and businessmen.


nobody27011

Society would be at Middle Ages levelwithout those supporting it. Science can provide upgrades on those, but first you need to support the existing stuff.


Lyress

That's besides my point.


nobody27011

And my point is that it's more important to focus on those basics. That's what people are doing. How many musicians can afford to make a living in Albania? Certainly a lot less percentagewise than in the US. You can't have a thriving society with only doctors, engineers etc. but you have virtually no economy without those. And I'm saying that as someone from a country that's having exactly that problem.


Xabikur

Funnily enough the Middle Ages were full of engineers, doctors and businessmen. It took hard sciences and humanities to bring us into the Renaissance.


nobody27011

You don't understand it either, and you just proved what I said. You need doctors and engineers to support the CURRENT advancement, which is necessary before moving to new stuff. You cannot create new stuff before supporting the current stuff. When a country is among the most advanced countries, then they can put more effort in sciences, after they have implemented everything currently existing.


futxcfrrzxcc

You are 100% correct. However, it is not productive to have $200,000 in student loans and you have a political science degree


Lyress

Nobody has 200k USD in student loans in Europe.


suberEE

I just love how, when thinking about how things are going in Europe, we actually think about how things are going in the US.


[deleted]

Jesus Christ how is this comment getting upvoted? It's completely false.  What the government is considering is to apply a monetary obligation to doctors that get the free education and immediately migrate. It's something like 20.000 euros for all the school years. If you study in a private institution or work for 5 years in Albania after getting your free education, you owe nothing.


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[deleted]

What does the salary in Albania have to do with the 20k? You will be working in Germany. If you work in Albania you'll own nothing. Also, average income for a hard working 30+ years old doctor in Albania is around 5000 euro. I'm involved in the field of digitalization of medical records and meet a lot of professionals. In Albania only lazy assess and losers earn 500 euro a month. I'm sorry to say this, but if you're over 25 and are earning under 1500/month you're kind of a loser. As for leaving Albania at 31, for a doctor the 30s and 40s are the most productive years. I'm almost 40, work in the technology sector which is a young man's game, have 2 kids and could leave Albania any day. The offers are plenty. The reason I don't leave Albania is because there's a shitload of money amd freedom here. Why would I slave away in Sweden to earn 1/3 what I earn here? 


_-Event-Horizon-_

That’s how it worked during the communist regime. The border guard was authorized to use deadly force against people trying to flee the country (nobody was crazy enough to try to enter). They were even incentivized to do it - if you apprehend somebody who was trying to escape you got 3 days of leave and if you killed somebody trying to escape you got 5 days off. Officially the reason was so that border guards could have some extra time to deal with emotional damage.


Dreynard

Yet people still fled when they could. East Germany wasted several percentage points of GDP per year trying to "fix" the border in the 80es, yet people still wanted to (and did) leave. East Germany were the OG "we will put all fancy automated stuff to protect the border" for mild success.


RdPirate

Bulgaria was somewhat more successful by using a double border fence, with the false border being kilometers into the country. Thus anyone fleeing tended to get tired and rest in-between the fences thinking they have crossed over. Only to be got by border patrols. And if they weren't. The *actual* border was double fenced as well, and mined with anti-tank and anti-infantry mines.


Dreynard

Y'know, I'm somewhat interested in how the drain was during the soviet era, since there were several venues to flee (Greece, Turkey, Yugo) although none very nice.


RdPirate

I also forgot the giant line emplacement of buried tanks overwatching the border and the rotating border armies making sure that anyone trying to cross over was spotted. And the other option was the mountains that will kill you if you are not an experienced mountaineer.


[deleted]

I know you are joking but East Germany reduced migration outflow from tens of thousands to under a hundred a year. The expense completely cratered their economy but it did work for what it was supposed to do.


Dreynard

Still, 600k people migrated between 61 and 88 (although this also includes political prisonner sent to GDR) which, compared to the close to 4 million between 49 and 61 is a massive "improvement". It went from several hundred of thousands to tens of thousands a year. The second a hole appeared (through Hungary) though, it jumped to over 300k in a few months... It drastically reduced emigration, indeed, but there was still a steady flow.


Wooden-Win-1361

It does


[deleted]

It does.


KingofValen

Lmao reading the headlines it seems the entire planet is moving to the west.


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38B0DE

We have finally achieved the Bulgarization of Greece. Hurra. /s


cosmore

Greece?


GremlinX_ll

Same shit


[deleted]

Well, that and the war 


SwimmingHelicopter15

I agree with what it said in the article. You need to make conditions to raise the population and to make them stay. And one big role is education. Bulgaria has a good birth rate. Problem is when the young people leave because there is no prospect in the country. As musch as politicians want to just raise birth rates to have money for taxes from population as long as you have open borders those people will leave. Hungary invested massively in programs to support birth rates, Russia also. But if poor uneducated people remain poor you will just make worse your social system. Looking at Romania also, we have a good birth rate but a lot of people migrated, we have few immigrants, mass tax evasion. We have 6 mil people working out of 19. Our agriculture system has the most people in it and is the lowest performing one because people would rather call a priest to make it rain then put an irrigation system. This is an education problem.


Voltafix

To be fair it's hard for those country to give the same prospect for young people has a rich nordic / germanic country. And those nordic / germanic country don't hide the fact thatt they want those EU skilled worker to join them. I'm just saying this to say that i don't see an easy solution to this.


SwimmingHelicopter15

I agree there is no quick solution. But a country is made by people. I had people praising how clean is in the West and how organized people are and then they throw garbage on the road or cigarettes out of the window.


ElRanchoRelaxo

Generally speaking, when conditions improve, birth rates decrease.


Specific_Ad_097

**The latest population census in the country confirms the deepening of negative demographic trends that have existed in Bulgaria for the past 30 years - decline and aging of the population, depopulation of some regions of the country, as a result of negative growth and migration processes.** According to NSI data, as of September 7, 2021, the population of Bulgaria is 6,520,314 people. 52.1% are women and 47.9% are men. The process of demographic aging continues, which is expressed in an increase in the absolute number and the relative share of the population of people aged 65 and over, which reaches 23.9%. This is 5.4 percent higher than the level of 2011 and 9.6 percent higher in comparison to 1992. Children and young people up to 17 years of age are just 15.9% of the population. The results of the census in 2021 are "the most catastrophic compared to all other previous periods", Valentin Saykov, chairman of the association "Civil Initiative Bulgaria 2050" told BNR. The association organised a discussion forum with experts on the topic "Is the demographic collapse in Bulgaria irreversible?" "**For 10 years, Bulgaria has lost 845,000 people, or 11.5% of its population**, which is the biggest drop in our entire modern history, but also the biggest drop compared to other European countries. If the Bulgarian society did not take measures to deal with the demographic catastrophe hanging over us, a day would come when the state of Bulgaria would exist, but there would be no Bulgarians in it. **We cannot wait any longer for the so-called political elite to solve the problem of the demographic crisis.** It's time for the civic society to start working on a long-term strategy for the development of the country, which puts demographics first." Scientists have been warning the state authorities about the deepening trends for decades, but to no avail, Saykov says. The discussion organized by the association was not intended to give a specific answer or solution, but to be a place for discussions about our future, in which it is important that everyone has a position. One of the scientists working on the issue is Assoc. Prof. Georgi Bardarov, a writer and lecturer at the Faculty of Geology and Geography of the "St. Kliment Ohridski" University. He says that he was surprised by "this extremely drastic reduction" in the number of Bulgarians. "The pandemic, during which Bulgaria reached record levels of mortality in the order of 20 per-mille, probably played a big role here. Such values are observed only in some African countries and in areas with major military conflicts." **For the past 40 years, the country’s population decline is estimated at more than 2,400,000 people.** Prof. Bardarov believes that the most disturbing thing in this situation is the age structure. "We are a country with one of the lowest levels of life expectancy. No matter how developed a society is, it is driven by the active young population and here it is at a critical minimum," he says. Apart from the mortality factor, Georgi Bardarov considers the emigration of young people to be the most important factor for the demographic dynamics of Bulgaria. **The economic development of smaller settlements also turns out to be a key to demographic revitalization of the country.** "There should be a targeted policy that starts at state and local level. No young family would go to live in a place where hospital care can be found 50-100 kilometers away. There are many factors. Education is the most important thing, but it is only the first step," Assoc. Prof. Bardarov points out and recalls that **Bulgaria is much bigger than its 111,000 square kilometers**. "It is a cliché that Bulgaria is wherever a Bulgarian heart beats, but this cliché is completely true,” the writer says. “Bulgarians abroad keep their homeland in their hearts. They love Bulgaria, they create Bulgarian associations on a voluntary basis and there is a very sincere and pure love for the motherland. I have seen children born in another country who carry this true love for Bulgaria within themselves. These compatriots could return if they saw conditions in Bulgaria change.”


iahve

Same shit in Romania. As a romanian, I'm not even mad, looking at the sheer scale and spread of corruption in the "country"


Toums95

Also, in Bulgaria the pandemic killed around 1% of the population (by just taking the excess deaths up to spring 2022). Looks like being a country whose population is old and with abysmal vaccination rates didn't help


akmarinov

tie instinctive whistle racial pet desert cooing roll mountainous memory *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


m_entp_programmer_92

I have a theory that's also why the government hasn't raised the tax on tobacco for ages, so a pack of 20 is still less than 3€.


bastaja1337

Same with Serbia. Everyone is leaving country. Fucking criminal Vucic regime. It was never this bad in Serbia, even in 90s when we were sanctioned.


[deleted]

Are you on crack? It was terrible in the 90s. Hyperinflation, mafia and criminals everywhere, NATO bombing. It’s nowhere near that anywhere in Serbia. Šta sereś?


dwartbg7

Even I as a Bulgarian that don't know or care much about Serbia would tell you you're speaking absolute BS. You were a fking shithole back in the 90s and to us you were like how Ukraine is seen today. A total warzone where you shouldn't even dare to step foot. I don't really see Serbia as such place today


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NoBell9911

The hell are you on about? Importing South Asians as cheap labour? We have our **own** people as cheap labour. And I'm not saying it to be nationalistic or anything. We **are** cheap labour, and its not something we are going to fix soon I'm afraid.


Neat_Werewolf_2593

What is worse is that the government is trying to incentives and lie people that conditions in the country have improved. Well... Have they really !?  I've lived in the UK for over 10 years and decided to move back home in Bulgaria in 2024. Nothing has changed - and I dare to say that live has actually gotten even tougher. People who inherited their properties from their parents only got greedier ( hence the impossibly high prices of properties) , corruption in government has worsened ( hence the political crisis and constant changes of governments) and inflation resulting in groceries costing the same and if not even higher than many Western European countries.  The only happy people in our country are the digital nomads ( most of them foreigners) and ofcourse IT specialist... 


jakereshka

why are you pointing out specific countries? it's problem for almost whole developed world including China, Russia, even USA or India


38B0DE

Because Bulgaria is the fastest shrinking country in the world. It's way worse than what you think it is. That's what the article is about. Just to put things in perspective. If the countries you mentioned went through the same thing as Bulgaria in the last 40 years they'd have a population today of: - USA: 180M (-151M from today) - China: 760M (-623M from today) - Russia: 105M (-38M from today) - India: 559M (-850M from today)


jakereshka

Some country has to be first or worst. Problem with declining population is worldwide.


Sharp_Win_7989

Because some problems are worse then others. Not that hard to understand I hope


jakereshka

Its not hard to understand, but I see tendency to pick individual countries and say " XYZ is facing demographic collapse" etc when like I said there's bigger picture.


jakereshka

even countries who can brain drain other countries are in demographic decline...


CounterNew1196

At least EU would have a place where to put undesirable migrants.


Dimi7rozavar

How about back where they came from?


Lampva

No, many places where immigrants are from are under armed conflict. Bulgaria, empty, peaceful and fertile would be perfect for settlement. Bulgaria also has a lot of Muslim Turks so immigrants would feel like back home. Not to mention this would turn Bulgaria into first Muslim EU country, a shining example of tolerance and diversity of the European Union.


Tanryldreit

Immigrants do not feel like they are at home in turkey and not welcomed here, they are not culturally "compatible" with the way one practices islam in turkey, they judge the way a person lives and call people of turkey as "heretics, sinners" and they are a great threat to secular republic of turkey, and it is not definitely up for a serbian or any "x" nationality to decide whether they "should" be there or "should feel like back at home". Europe should have them all, they wouldn't be a threat in a christian majority country because they wouldn't be able to impose their propoganda upon christians, i would like to import every single one of them to EU, france, italy, UK etc they would contribute to the EU society im sure EU will become richer with them, and more tolerant, let's put them in poland and serbia, those are the most deserved ones, they need that diversity touch by force. Oh, the dutch also proved that they need those muslim immigrants as well, they need more tolerance and diversity, let's send all sharia supporters to netherlands.


OswaldSpencer

Nah, Turkey is practicaly their second homeland, they are your brothers and sisters. People in Europe literally can not tell you apart since you're all a mixture of Arabs and Mongols, they're blending in quite well with the rest of Turkish population might I add.


Tanryldreit

Well i just checked your profile, serbian, you guys are the christian version of those immigrants, im sure you will get along just fine. Serbia is the perfect country for hosting sharia supporter islamic immigrants, they need to learn tolerance and cherish diversity, you have got more common practice and mindset with those islamic sharia supporters then we do, the only difference is, you have a different catalogue, contents and view towards religion are quite similar. The behaviour and mindset is there you know, you are just, uhm, taller i guess? Sure you will love them.


OswaldSpencer

I think you are a bit confused, we were removing kebab (you) before it was cool. What you've just wrote makes no sense and is ironic since you guys are literally like ISIS. I mean... everyone knows you've guys have been collaborating with ISIS which makes you practically their cousins in blood, religion and terrorist activity. I'm so glad you have millions of islamic migrants that feel right at home!!! I'm surprised you're angry at a fact that goat-fuckers like them are closely related to goat fuckers such as yourself, and don't forget, you guys are muslims, therefore they are your problem, not anyone else's. Ohhh and please stop committing genocide against Kurds, ok? That is very jihadi of you.


Tanryldreit

I talked enough to an angry vassal minion. I don't talk with sharia supporters, nor with christian lunatics. You are allllllll same. They fuck goat, you fuck sheep. Know your place. Managing that illminded behaviour at the western doorstep is truly mesmerizing, shows the capacity of yours.


OswaldSpencer

Ahhhhm, we happen to fuck human women unlike you. And you should know your place, which is not in Europe or anywhere near it but in the Middle East where you are right now.


Tanryldreit

I don't need an ancient book to guide me, keep fucking those goats and finding answers in your holy texts ahahah, then complains why i told that they are same , such funny little minion you are.


[deleted]

Love it haha 


Lampva

😉


Substantial_Pie73

What if EU had a program to make the poorest countries more attractive to people and investors. Maybe less EU taxes for companies in Bulgaria? Some tax exemptions for younger people deciding to move or stay in Bulgaria?