Minister of Interior: There is no increased migration pressure

There is no increased migration pressure, outgoing Minister of Interior, Kalin Stoyanov, said on March 13 at a hearing in Parliament on the increased incidents with migrants.

The head of the State Agency for Refugees, Mariana Tosheva, explained that there is no increase in incidents in the Accommodation Centres, which are only 50% full. The issue was an occasion for the opposition to accuse the government of hiding the facts.

The hearing has been going on for nearly 3 hours. What has become clear from the Minister of Interior’s response is that there has been a steady reduction in migrant pressure since September due to the actions taken by the Ministry of interior on border security and control in the country. Kalin Stoyanov welcomed GERB's proposal that full-time Ministry of Interior employees should take over the protection of the country’s border and that Ministry of Interior employees should guard the refugee accommodation centres.

Mariana Tosheva said that there are weaknesses in the security of the centres, caused by the fact that it is currently carried out by private companies whose employees are at retirement age.

"There is no increased migration pressure. On the contrary, there is a steady trend of decreasing migration pressure and I can show figures. Since the beginning of this year, we have prevented 5,200 attempts to cross the Bulgarian-Turkish border illegally. In the same period last year, there were 15,600, which is 3 times bigger. Separately, there have been 260 detentions in the interior of the country since the beginning of the year, compared with 1,260 in the same period last year. These figures very eloquently show that we are tackling the migration pressure," Minister Kalin Stoyanov said.

"The minister has just said that 260 people have been detained since the beginning of the year. Right? In my hands, I am holding an official report from the Interior Ministry to us MPs. The first sentence of this report reads as follows: In January alone, a total of 396 nationals of 3rd countries were detained, of whom 76 at entry, 109 at the exit and 219 were found to be illegally staying in the interior of the country. This is in writing, in black and white, and the figure is 396. The same minister just said 260. You draw your own conclusions and whether you should believe everything he says from the rostrum," said Kornelia Ninova.

"The monthly cost of supporting each migrant is 395 BGN, i.e. we as Bulgarian taxpayers pay 395 BGN every month. We, the Bulgarian citizens, are going to pay 400 BGN per month to be afraid, to watch beatings and to be beaten," Petar Petrov from "Vazrazhdane" said.

"The issue of 'migrants, criminals and the refugee crisis' is a favourite of the Kremlin not only here but across Europe. It is natural for Mitrofanova's microphones to sow fear, hatred, division, lies, misinformation. Let's face facts. There is no crisis of unprecedented migrant flow. There are 192 persons admitted in 3 months under the Dublin regulation. There is no crisis in accommodation centres. They are half empty and 43% filled with only 1,600 people," said Iskren Mitev from WCC-DB.

"Indeed, we are underfunded." We had submitted a budget estimate of 22,500 million BGN but the approved budget for the Agency, for 2024 is 11,700 million BGN for registered conflicts. For this period - 2022, 2023, 2024, incidents have been registered, but they are less than 30 per year, and for this year this is the first incident of a domestic nature inside the centre, which goes beyond the territory of the centre and disturbs, worries the residents around the centre", emphasised Mariana Tosheva.