65.3% of Bulgarian Workers Earn Below Subsistence Level
According to recent data from the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions of Bulgaria (CITUB), the financial strain on Bulgarian households continues to intensify
Ministers do not know how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK when restrictions are relaxed, the communities secretary has said.
Eric Pickles said he has no confidence in figures, published on his department's own website, predicting about 13,000 will arrive.
The government could only monitor "pull factors" attracting migrants, he said.
Romanians and Bulgarian have faced restrictions on coming to the UK to work since the countries joined the EU.
Speaking at a Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch in Westminster, Mr Pickles said: "I know it's a bloody mistake to tell the truth but... the truth is nobody really knows.
"So all the government can do is to just be careful about the pull factors that might range from the health service, through housing, through benefits within the law to try and ensure there isn't an extra attraction to come here.
"Already there are people working in Lincolnshire and our crops being brought in (by people) that come from Romania and Bulgaria and the truth is very few carrots would be picked without that help that is there."
Migration prediction
"So there is no secret formula that is too horrible to bring out, there is no secret calculation that we are trying to hide from the world because, indeed the calculation has been on my website undisturbed for the best part of two years and there are other documents that we will be publishing in due course."
The Home Office has said it has not produced forecasts and Downing Street has insisted it would not publish predictions on the number of people who could move to the UK when rules on the movement of people from the EU member states are relaxed at the end of 2013.
The formula on the website suggests 4,613 Bulgarians and 8,155 Romanians would head to the UK.
The countries joined the European Union in 2007 but under "transitional arrangements" their workers were prevented from travelling to the UK.
Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tougher controls on immigration, estimates 250,000 Romanians and Bulgarians will move to the UK in the first five years after access restrictions are lifted.
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Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.
The prospect of US President Donald Trump's moving closer to Russia has scrambled the strategy of "balancing East and West" used for decades by countries like Bulgaria, the New York Times says.
Bulgarians have benefited a lot from their EU membership, with incomes rising and Brussels overseeing politicians, according to a New York Times piece.
German businesses prefer to trade with Bulgaria rather than invest into the country, an article on DW Bulgaria's website argues.
The truth about Bulgaria and Moldova's presidential elections is "more complicated" and should not be reduced to pro-Russian candidates winning, the Economist says.
President-elect Rumen Radev "struck a chord with voters by attacking the status quo and stressing issues like national security and migration," AFP agency writes after the presidential vote on Sunday.
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