ПОЛОЖАЈ БУГАРСКЕ НАЦИОНАЛНЕ МАЊИНЕ И ПРОЦЕС ПРИСТУПАЊА СРБИЈЕ ЕВРОПСКОЈ УНИЈИ
POSITION OF THE BULGARIAN NATIONAL MINORITY AND SERBIA‘S ACCESSION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: Based on the analysis of census statistical data, the paper studies the development, position, socio-economic and ethnodemographic characteristics of members of the Bulgarian national minority in Serbia. Following and comparing the results of successive state censuses, depopulation trends in the demographic development of Bulgarian nationality were observed, whose number has decreased by more than three times since World War II, as a result of decades of declining fertility, aging, migration, ethnic alternation, and other factors. In addition to the number and spatial distribution, the paper also investigates the characteristics of the age, educational, and economic structure, as important indicators of the position and socio-cultural development of the Bulgarian population in Serbia. The analysis of census results on the mother tongue as an important ethnocultural feature for the realization of certain minority rights in various spheres of social life is also important. The second part of the paper deals with the legal and political position of the Bulgarian minority through the prism of Serbian-Bulgarian relations, bearing in mind the impact of regulating the status and respecting minority rights on regional cooperation and bilateral agreements between Serbia and Bulgaria. At the same time, it is an important condition for Serbia’s European integration and EU accession, which implies that improving the position of national minorities and good relations with neighbors, especially those whose members live as national minorities in Serbia, is a priority of Serbia’s foreign policy. Research conducted over the last decade indicates that the degree and forms of guaranteed human and minority rights of the Bulgarian national minority in Serbia are well established, with possible further improvement of mechanisms for their realization.

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