On October 16 2006, UK newspaper The Guardian published an article headlined “Bulgarian Rhapsody”, about Bulgaria’s achievements in the past 17 years.
The article refuted reports by the Daily Mail that crowds of Bulgarians were waiting for the country to enter the EU to immigrate to the UK. There were no crowds in front of the British visa office in Sofia, except for a “tiny trickle of routine humanity coming and going,” The Guardian said.
Surely there would be some workers that would leave Bulgaria hoping to find better-paid jobs, but the majority of them had already gone to Spain, Portugal and France. A possible second wave of migrants would probably also go to the Southern European countries, according to the article.
The immigration problems that currently drew the most attention among Bulgarians were the 3000 Brits buying property in the country, The Guardian said.
Bulgaria has taken “at least a painstaking decade of targets and reforms to meet European Union requirements” and to turn into a stable European democracy.
Its anti-corruption committee elaborated a draft bill “clamping down” on corruption, The Guardian said, “featuring such wonders as the right to run advertisements in local newspapers denouncing politicians who cross the line”. Bulgaria also evolved “an ethical code of practice that many Western countries might envy”.
Bulgaria chose Europe instead of risking turning into a political earthquake zone, the article said, but “do we [the Europeans] value, or even much notice, that achievement?” it asked.
Property in Bulgaria - 
DO THE EUROPEANS NOTICE BULGARIA'S ACHIEVEMENTS?