The future of Bulgarian crafts and their organizations

published on 12/2/09 12:44 PM

Photo: Milka Dimitrova

A round table organized by the National Chamber of Crafts in Sofia brought together representatives of the chamber’s leadership, experts and MPs. The representatives of the crafts guilds, however, were only a few.

Should the Bill on Crafts, acting in the last 8 years be changed? Would the changes be successful and would they really help craftsmen in Bulgaria? These were the subjects of heated debates. Tailors, hair dressers, manicurists and fur-dressers are all people who should be part of the middle class, for the establishment of which Bulgaria has been working in the last 20 years. The acting bill on crafts covers these guilds and defends their rights. The draft for amendments to the Bill, worked out by experts from the Ministry of the Economy, Energy and Tourism contains, according to the leadership of the National Chamber of Crafts perceives a number of disputable aspects. According to them the list of professions that could be considered crafts should be updated. “It is not possible for craftsmanship to take keep us to the era of economic renaissance”, is the opinion of Krastyo Kapanov, chairman of the Board of the National Crafts Chamber.

“Bulgaria would become the only country in the EU that would keep reading the notion of “craftsman” as a historic anachronism and would boil down its law to a description of crafts surviving from times of old and define them in terms of obsolete word one can understand only with the help of a dictionary, Kapanov maintains. Europe uses the term “craft” in a modern sense and through local legislature EU member-countries regulate not only what has remained from traditional crafts of the past but present day manufacture activities and their future in local economies.”

The draft bill should cover the contemporary notion of craftsmanship, the Chamber insists. The craftsmen guild also argues about the changes according to which regional branches of the chamber should register as NGOs, which would practically destroy the National Chamber of Crafts. According to Krastyo Kapanov, that would entail even severer consequences.

“It affects its prestige and the significance of the documents it issues, especially the mastership diplomas, he goes on to say. It is the only document that makes legal each master craftsman allowing him to practice throughout Europe. It is the proof that he is a craftsman and has passed the exam allowing him to start work. It is an attempt to annihilate the significance of the master’s diploma, which is at the moment of international validity. It would become illegitimate and existing documents would become but an exotic memory.”

Craftsmen also argue about whether a person of university degree should be compelled to pass a craftsman exam in order to obtain a master’s diploma. Opinions on the matter split. Disputable issues in the new draft bill are quite many. Craftsmanship has its problems, which however could well be solved under the currently acting law, is the opinion of some of the involved.

English version: Iva Letnikova

По публикацията работи: Milka Dimitrova

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