Bulgaria

From 2003 to 2006, the Civil Society Index was implemented in Bulgaria by the Balkan Assist Association (BAA), with the international coordination of CIVICUS. This implementation led to the publication of an analytical country report, presenting the results of the CSI initiative in the country.

Civil Society Without the Citizens: an Assessment of Bulgarian Civil Society

Over that period, the CSI highlights funding and sustainability as the major challenges to Bulgarian civil society. Given Bulgaria’s upcoming accession to the European Union in 2007, many donors are now phasing out their support, and Bulgarian civil society is challenged to develop new ways of sustaining itself. BAA then started coordinating the first concrete actions resulting from the assessment.

Earlier that year, it held a national workshop to share and discuss its findings with more than 80 stakeholders across the nation, and to provide opportunities for the stakeholders to develop recommendations for strengthening civil society in Bulgaria. Recognising that citizens’ taxes could potentially finance civil society’s activities, a civil society task force was established to draft a law that would enable citizens to voluntarily donate 1% of their taxes to a CSO of their choice.

In 2006, the task force has met twice, and BAA is working closely with other CSOs to organise the task force’s activities. In a following meeting, hosted by the Bulgarian Center for Non-for-Profit Law, which is an active participant in the task force, four sub teams were created to rally support for the 1% tax law. These sub teams were designed to lobby CSOs, state institutions, political parties, business and the media for their support.

From 2008-2010 the CSI was implemented in Bulgaria by the Open Society Institute with international coordination from CIVICUS.

Civil  Society in Bulgaria: Citizen Actions Without Engagement

Of the 5 dimensions that were used to assess Bulgarian civil society, civic engagement scored the lowest with 40.5% out of 100. This would seem to present a continuing challenge for civil society in the country, as the dimension had a low score in the previous CSI report. The Bulgaria report raised issues such as low levels of participation in CSOs, low perceived impact of CSOs in Bulgarian society as well as low levels of trust in public institutions as some of the challenges that CSOs face in Bulgaria. Corruption was raised as one of the issues that cause citizens to have low levels of trust in public institutions.

However, there are more positive aspects of Bulgarian civil society reported, such as their influence in education, environmental activism and support for vulnerable groups, as well as a high level of internal perception about the democratic governance in CSOs and favourable socioeconomic and political conditions for civil societies to operate. The report also examines the impact of Bulgaria’s recent membership of the EU on conditions for civil society, and concludes that while EU membership has led to a potential expansion of opportunity for civil society, in practice there is a serious issue about who gets to access, and benefit from, EU funding.

CSI Country Reports in Bulgaria