Bulgaria’s readiness to enter Schengen, the lack of skilled manpower and the cabinet’s striving to get the country into Schengen – those were some of the subjects tackled at the 12^th annual meeting of government with business, held in Sofia under the slogan 2018’s Major Issues. The importance of the Schengen accession expectedly provoked serious interest. Answering a question on the overthrowing of the Bulgarian candidacy during the Borissov 1 cabinet due to corruption allegations, Financial Minister Vladislav Goranov said:

“The Central Bank of Europe is interested in quite different things. Corruption is the problem of every society. Latest sociological research shows that we are not ranked first at all.”

PM Borissov stated that the country had met all the Schengen criteria:

“It is enough for us to see that all European institutions have stated Bulgaria’s readiness for Schengen. There is a member-state which wouldn’t allow us for its own self-preservation – because if we are a Schengen country and the agreement with Turkey fails tomorrow with 500,000 migrants entering Bulgaria – we will be sunk, but nothing will stop them to reach Holland. That is the fear.”

The premier outlined the good cooperation between the ministers of education, social policy and the interior. As a result over 17,000 children who had not visited school were now back there.

The lack of skilled manpower for business in Bulgaria is another issue causing concern. Data says that lost profits due to emigration exceed EUR 2 bln. per year, equal to 4% of GDP. 700,000 Bulgarians work across the EU and 38% of the companies in this country fail to find manpower. Vice Premier Tomislav Donchev voiced the opinion that the introduction of the e-government will reduce by 1/3 the number of those employed by the state administration and will allow the allocation of some of them to real economy. Donchev sees three possible ways out of the crisis with lack of skilled HR. The first one is the return of unemployed people back to work, which is hard to be done, as many of those have lost their working habits or haven’t worked for over two years. The attraction of foreign work-hand is a second possibility and that has already proven its effectiveness in the service sphere. A scenario of that type could help many Bulgarians from EU countries and the Moldova, Ukraine and Serbia diaspora to find their job here. The third option is the state to establish the necessary prerequisites for the Bulgarians who want to return to continue working not only in the capital Sofia, but also in other cities and towns. However, this requires competitive job offers with the respective salaries, but also accommodation for the employee and his family in case they don’t have their own:

“If local authorities have larger building funds that can be one of the stimuli during the talk with a certain employer. It might sound primitive, but I am convinced that this could be a stimulus whenever someone decides to accept a job offer at another settlement. It is a complicated matter to decide where to live and work. It is based not only on the salary received, but also on other factors – kindergarten, school, infrastructure, crime rate, air quality etc.” Vice Premier Donchev says in conclusion.