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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Croatia's Long Road Toward EuropeIn 1991 Croatia was among the few countries in Central and Eastern Europe that could claim to possess economy able to compete on the western markets. During the following 4-5 years of war in Yugoslavia this economic advantage over some of the eastern neighbors became irrelevant and many other countries from Central and Eastern Europe gained lead on the road to Europe. An additional hurdle to Croatian pro-European aspirations was the nationalist political culture of the ruling party in the years that followed the official end of war hostilities in 1995. Croatia lost other valuable years because of its animosity toward the War tribunal in The Hague. When finally the sky seemed to be cleared from all past misunderstandings, the country again was struggling on its road to Brussels because the new nationalist-inspired government unilaterally decided to put under economic control large portions of Adriatic Sea. If we compare the Croatian case with other regional countries, Romania and Bulgaria, which economically seem weak even within the framework of Eastern Europe, we'll see that they perhaps will gain EU membership before Croatia, not because they run quicker, but because their run began much earlier. Croatia hopes to enter the EU by 2007, but to do this it has to finish the accession talks by the end of this year or by the middle of 2005 at the latest. So far thanks to the political intransigence of Zagreb and the new government of Ivo Sanader, the membership talks didn't even start. The main precondition for talks for the country is to have the Stabilization and Association agreement ratified by all EU member states. So far 3 of them didn't ratify the agreement, namely Italy, UK and Netherlands. Italy wants to see the Adriatic Sea unilateral economic redistribution repealed, UK and Netherlands want from Zagreb to cooperate fully with the tribunal in The Hague. On the other hand, the economic front continues showings signs of strength and the real estate prices, especially along the Adriatic coast, have increased significantly during the last months. With the qualification that every economic forecast in the Balkans is conditioned by political and security considerations, we can predict that the real estate market, especially in the resort areas, will grow further until it reaches the average levels on the opposite side of the sea. The foreign retirees, who buy property in Croatia, seem not too much worried by the political deadlock between Zagreb and Brussels. For them either the EU membership of Croatia doesn't matter for their plans, or it final stages are considered as a matter of time.
EU-Croatian bilateral relations
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Croatia.
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