During the hearings in the plenary hall of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Foreigners in the Republic of Bulgaria, Kostadin Kostadinov expressed disagreement with the philosophy of the bill and the state policy regarding foreign labor. From the parliamentary rostrum, the chairman of „Vazrazhdane“ stated that the amendments to the law contradict the national interest and lead to the destruction of the labor market in our country.
„Currently, there are 60,000 jobs for unskilled personnel in Bulgaria, and in the tourism sector, nearly 40 thousand unfilled positions. This is the result of a long-standing policy in which these people were viewed as working cattle, not as people. As a result, they fled abroad and now employers are hiring Bangladeshis, Nepalese and all sorts of other exotic nationalities for us.“, Kostadinov emphasized.
He criticized the idea of creating a special regime for foreigners in the field of high technology – engineers, software specialists, and raised the question of why foreign personnel are tolerated instead of developing Bulgarian ones.
In his speech, Kostadinov also made a symbolic parallel between the building of the Council of Ministers and the ruin of Bulgarian industry:
„The building of the Council of Ministers is housed in the building of the former Ministry of Heavy Industry - when Bulgaria had industry. When there was a special ministry, the purpose of which was to build new and new production facilities, which brought Bulgaria to 21st place in the world as an industrial production power. Today - zero. Nothing is left.“
From „Vazrazhdane“ insist on pursuing a policy that stimulates the development of the Bulgarian workforce, and not on a temporary and unsustainable solution by importing foreigners, who anyway “come here to work for a few months, then flee to Western Europe.“
“Our work as members of parliament should be to develop our labor market and our specialists, and not to kill the Bulgarian sector and then wonder how to bring in foreigners from outside to replace them,“ concluded Kostadinov.