Bulgaria ranks between Croatia and Romania in terms of quality of life

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Bulgaria and Romania hardly approach the other EU countries in their development. They remain closer to the other Balkan countries in terms of economic state, quality of life, level of democracy and state governance, shows the Catch-up Index, developed by experts of the Open Society Institute. The index compares Bulgaria with the other EU member-states and the candidates for EU membership: Croatia, Iceland, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Turkey, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“Our country occupies the 28th position after Croatia, but is before Romania in terms of the four main criteria – state of the economy, quality of life, democracy and governance,” said Asya Kavrakova, an expert at the Open Society Institute when presenting an analysis on Bulgaria’s EU membership and the competitiveness of our country’s economy.

A total of 47 criteria have been used for the evaluation and comparison of 35 European countries, which have been divided in six groups according to similarity of development. Bulgaria belongs to the fifth group together with Croatia, Latvia, Romania and Montenegro, which are followed by the candidates for EU accession: Serbia, Macedonia, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Although the index of the Bulgarian economic development is high, the quality of life in our country is lower even than the living standards in Serbia and Montenegro.

Comparing the Catch-up Index of the new EU members with regard to the old EU member-states, the experts found that the Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia are the countries closest to the first 24 EU members.

 

Text and photo: www.klassa.bg

(31.01.2012)