“BULGARIAN PASSPORTS” – POSSIBILITIES FOR GREATER MOBILITY OF MACEDONIANS AND/OR STRATEGIES FOR IDENTITY MANIPULATION?
“BULGARIAN PASSPORTS” – POSSIBILITIES FOR GREATER MOBILITY OF MACEDONIANS AND/OR STRATEGIES FOR IDENTITY MANIPULATION?

Summary/Abstract: Since its independence, the political situation in Macedonia is quite dynamic and turbulent, while the economical situation is worrying. There are a huge number of unemployed people, who cannot work as migrants in the European countries and overseas, due to the visa problems. Thus, following the entrance of Bulgaria into the EU, the interest of Macedonian citizens for obtaining Bulgarian citizenship expectedly increased, that is, what increased was the interest for obtaining personal documents, and most importantly, a passport of the Republic of Bulgaria. When we think about the strategies, the concept of citizenship, which practically enables the individuals to obtain documents for personal identification and passports, it is legal to start from the idea of Marshal that citizenship as a concept consists of the three basic elements or dimensions. The first is that the citizenship is a legal status, the second element provides the political, while the third one provides the social rights and obligations. Thus, when citizenship is observed as a strategy from the aspect of the individual, it is close to reality if it is related to fulfilling of the legal status, which in the case of Macedonian citizens provides them with passports that open the road to the countries in the world. On the other hand, having in mind the history and the current political events of negating Macedonian national and ethnic identity, negating Macedonian language etc., there are certain interpretations among Macedonian public, that this strategy is one of the many which were already undertaken by Bulgaria towards Macedonians for destabilizing their identity.

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