Eurasia Press & News
Bulgarian citizenship issuing procedure for people from the Bulgarian communities in Albania has been speeded up. Around 1,000 Bulgarians from Albania have obtained Bulgarian passports over the last years.
At the meeting between Bulgarian minister without portfolio in charge of Bulgarian residents abroad, Bozhidar Dimitrov, and representatives of the Bulgarian communities in Elbasan and Durres, held in the city of Durrest, it was announced there are still some unsolved problems connected to delayed or lost records. Some people have waited for Bulgarian citizenship for four or five years.
With the adoption of the new Bulgarian Citizenship Act there is a one-year deadline within which the candidate should either obtain Bulgarian citizenship or get rejection on the application.
Some 1,326 applications for Bulgarian citizenship have been filed from 2001 until 2007, while 299 people have obtained Bulgarian passport.
Around three times more people have obtained Bulgarian passports after the procedure has been speeded up as of mid-2009, Minister Dimitrov said.
