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The external assessments, which are already conducted in four stages of the school education system - after the fourth, seventh, tenth, and twelfth grades - cannot provide a complete and accurate diagnosis of the quality and problems within it. Nevertheless, they offer a simple and clear evaluation of at least one aspect of students' achievements. The results after the seventh grade this year have shown a widespread decline compared to the previous year, with significant regional differences, but a slight improvement, at least in mathematics, after the tenth grade. On the other hand, during the 2021/22 academic year, there has been a universal and significant decline in the matriculation exams, which are of great importance for the further realization of twelfth-grade students in higher education.

The data on the results of the matriculation exams in Bulgarian language and literature in 2022 at the regional level, obtained by IME through the Access to Public Information Act, indicate significantly lower grades in all parts of the country. No region has registered an increase compared to 2021. The decline is by no means uniform across different regions, with the average grades decreasing most visibly in Razgrad - by a whole 43 hundredths, which places the region last in the country with a "Good" grade (3.53). There is also a significant decline in Shumen and Dobrich, by 40 hundredths each, as well as in Haskovo (-38 hundredths) and Pleven (-36 hundredths), with these regions also ranking towards the bottom of the ranking. Conversely, the highest grades are in the traditional leaders Sofia (the capital), Smolyan, and Varna. However, it is striking that in the case of Smolyan, often cited as an example of success in structuring and managing secondary education in Bulgaria, there is also a significant decline on an annual basis - by 32 hundredths of a grade, placing the region only slightly ahead of Plovdiv and Varna.

Similarly, there is a widespread decline in the results of students who failed the maturity exams. Here, too, there are significant differences between different regions, with the highest percentage of failures recorded in the first session of the Bulgarian language and literature exam in Haskovo (28% of participating students), Shumen, and Razgrad (27% each), as well as in Kardzhali and Pleven (26% each). The regions with the weakest performance in many cases double or triple the number of students who failed the maturity exam, and in six of them, the increase is over 15 percentage points within one year. Even in regions with the lowest share of weak grades, the increase is many times higher - in Sofia (the capital), it rises from 1.8% in 2021 to 6.8% in 2022, and in Smolyan, from 2.4% to 9.6%.

When comparing the results from different editions of the maturity exam, we should keep in mind that they are not fully equivalent - there are always certain differences in the level of difficulty, which inevitably affect the final results of the students. This is particularly true for the current edition, which introduces significant changes in the exam's structure and evaluation. The prolonged period of distance learning during the Covid pandemic also plays a role, significantly worsening access to education for the disadvantaged and children in unfavorable family environments.

Despite the comparability issues, based on the data from the new matriculation exams, it can be concluded that the inequalities in the educational system between the regions in Bulgaria, which also lead to a significant gap in student achievements, persist and even deepen. The dynamics are also important – while in some regions there is a 15-point increase in the proportion of weak grades, in others it is only 5 points. This shows that in places with poorly functioning school education, many more children have barely passed the exam so far, and a slight increase in criteria pushes them below the passing threshold. This, in turn, emphasizes the need for reform aimed at improving the educational process and the quality of education, not only in elite schools but also among the lowest-performing ones today.

The significant rise in weak grades also has practical consequences. On the one hand, many more students will have to attend the second session of the matriculation exam, which requires additional resources for its organization. However, the more important effect is on the students themselves – for the least prepared among them, the real risk of not completing their secondary education increases, which poses a significant barrier to their employability. This creates problems for higher education institutions as well, as they already face difficulties in filling the announced student positions due to negative demographic trends, and lower average grades on the matriculation exam will mean even easier access to the specialties for which they are decisive.

Of course, it is too early to assess the long-term trends in matriculation exams based solely on one year of sharp decline, especially when we consider that in the previous few years, both the average grades in the regions and the proportion of weak grades remained relatively stable. However, these significantly weaker results once again highlight the need for a long-overdue reform that addresses issues in the quality of school education and the significant disparities between individual schools and localities.

One of the strongest local economies before the crisis, Varna, maintains its leading position during the pandemic period thanks to its diversified economy. However, there are serious inequalities in the levels of economic development between the regional center of Varna, the industrial hub of Devnya, and the other municipalities within its composition. The labor market in the region suffered a heavy blow in 2020, although there are signs of recovery in 2021, especially in terms of unemployment. Like many other parts of the country, migration processes have reversed during the pandemic year, leading to an outflow of population from the major city to the surrounding municipalities.

Contractions in the economies of Varna

Despite their more diverse local economies and significantly less dependence on revenue from summer tourism compared to neighboring Burgas, the municipalities of Varna face significant economic problems in the pandemic year of 2020. Out of the twelve municipalities in the region, only three experienced growth in per capita value added compared to 2019 - Avren, Aksakovo, and Dolni Chiflik, with Aksakovo being among the larger municipal economies. On the other hand, the most significant contractions occurred in Beloslav (-45% within a year), Byala (-40%), and Suvorovo (-39%), primarily due to the disruption of international trade and the consequently reduced activity in the Varna ports, as well as a decline in international tourism. There is a significant decline in value added in the industrial municipality of Devnya (-11%), while the contraction in the regional center is less severe, at -1.9%. The negative trend is also evident in the change in GDP per capita in the region as a whole, with the indicator decreasing by 5% in one year.

Despite the disruptions, there have been no major rearrangements in the economic weight of the individual municipalities within Varna in 2020. The regional center remains the largest local economy with a total value added of 3.4 billion leva in the pandemic year, followed by Devnya with 429 million leva, Aksakovo (175 million leva), and Beloslav (62 million leva). The significant differences in the economic development of different parts of the region become more apparent when examining the value added per capita. While in Devnya it is 50 thousand leva per person, comparable to the strongest energy and processing centers in Bulgaria, in Varna it is 10 thousand leva per person, and in Aksakovo - 8 thousand leva. The lowest level of economic development is found in the municipality of Dalgopol, with only 924 leva of value-added, followed by Dolni Chiflik (1.7 thousand leva) and Avren (1.8 thousand leva).

Focus on investments

While in most regions the regional center attracts the largest share of foreign investments, in the case of Varna, the largest volume of foreign capital is in the municipality of Devnya. In 2020, foreign direct investments (FDI) in the industrial center amounted to 774 million euros, compared to 611 million euros in the municipality of Varna. These two municipalities concentrate almost all foreign investments in the region, with only Byala exceeding 10 million euros FDI among the others. Thanks to its special position within the region, Devnya has the highest foreign investments per capita in the country (among those for which data are not confidential) - 91 thousand euros per person, while in the municipality of Varna, this volume is 1,779 euros per person. However, in 2020, there was an outflow of foreign capital from the region, with a noticeable decline in the regional center by 24% compared to the previous year, and a decrease of 5% in Devnya.

The pandemic year also brought a significant contraction in the current investment activity of non-financial enterprises in the municipalities of Varna. Capital expenditure per capita in Devnya decreased by 18% compared to the previous year, and in Varna, it decreased by 13%. Similarly to foreign investments, capital expenditure is concentrated in these two municipalities - 699 million leva in Varna and 114 million leva in Devnya. Thanks to this, Devnya ranks first among all municipalities in the country with 13.4 thousand leva of capital expenditure per capita, with the necessary caveat that data for the municipalities in the Srednogorie region and some mining centers are confidential, and they are likely also among the leaders.

Unlike the southern coastal municipalities, those in the Varna region attract a relatively small volume of European funds, with Beloslav being the regional leader with 2.6 thousand leva per person for all programming periods. The Varna municipality has attracted 1.4 thousand leva per person, and most municipalities in the region range from 1,000 to 1,200 leva per person. The most likely reason for this is the greater focus of local authorities on private investments compared to European programs.

The decline in employment

The rapid deterioration of the economic situation inevitably hurts the labor market in the municipalities of Varna. Since there is no data on full employment at the municipal level, we rely on the number of employees under labor and service relationships from the entire population aged 15 and over. As expected, the largest decline in the number of employed individuals in the working-age population is observed in the municipalities where tourism plays a leading role since many hotels and restaurants abandoned traditional summer employment in 2020. Consequently, the share of employed individuals in the working-age population in Byala decreased by a significant 5 percentage points compared to the previous year, while in Avren it decreased by 4 percentage points. The decline in the regional center, Varna, is 3.3 percentage points, which is among the more significant declines in the major cities in the country.

The fall in employment is accompanied by a significant increase in unemployment in most municipalities, with rates reaching 21% in Dulagpol, 15% in Dolni Chiflik, and 13% in Avren by the end of 2020. It is important to note that these municipalities already had high unemployment rates before the crisis. However, the impact of the crisis is short-term, as data from the Employment Agency indicate a decline in unemployment in all municipalities in 2021, reaching 3% of the working-age population in the regional center and 6.2% in Devnya. In terms of the size of the local labor market, Varna has the highest number of workers with 96,000 people in 2020, while all other municipalities have fewer than 5,000 employees. The most active local labor market is in Devnya, where 58% of the population aged 15 and over are employed.

Educational inequality

The future of the workforce in Varna largely depends on the outcomes of the educational process in the region. Similar to other strong economic centers, there are significant differences in achievements between the major city and the surrounding municipalities. For example, if we look at the results of external assessments after the seventh grade, the municipality of Varna is among the top performers in the country, with an average score of 52 in mathematics and 67 in the Bulgarian language. However, the other municipalities in the region fall far below this level, especially in terms of mathematics, which is an important requirement for the ambitions of developing a digital economy. Similar disparities can be observed in the results of the high school graduation exams. While Varna achieves an average grade of "Good" (4.52) in Bulgarian Language and Literature, most other municipalities receive grades below the "Average" (3.5). Additionally, some municipalities face significant challenges with school dropout rates. For example, in the pre-high school phase of education, 9% of students in Avren and 6% in Devnya drop out of school, making their future integration into the labor market particularly difficult.

The demographic magnet of Northern Bulgaria

The regions in Northern Bulgaria are experiencing pronounced negative demographic processes, with the fastest-aging regions losing between 1/5 and 1/4 of their population over the past decade. However, Varna is an exception to the trend north of the Balkan Mountains, as the region had been a magnet for population even before 2020, often attracting younger residents. In the pandemic year, however, the trends within the region are changing, with the regional center losing population due to migration processes, while all other municipalities experience significant growth driven by both outflow from the city of Varna and the return of Bulgarians from abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic. In relative terms, the most significant growth is observed in the municipality of Suvorovo, where the population increased by 10% or more than 753 individuals in 2020, followed by Aksakovo and Avren, which experienced growth rates of over 9% or 2,869 and 2,000 individuals, respectively. Meanwhile, the population decline in Varna due to emigration is 0.7%.

However, the excess mortality in 2020 also leads to a rapid deterioration of natural processes, with all municipalities except Vetrino experiencing a worsening natural population growth. This is most evident in Vulchi Dol and Beloslav. There are significant differences between the municipalities in the region, with natural population growth ranging from -21.7 per thousand in Vetrino to -19.9 per thousand in Vulchi Dol, and -3.3 per thousand in the regional center, which comes closest to a balance between mortality and birth rates.

Author: Adrian Nikolov

The municipalities in the Burgas region suffered the heaviest blow in the country as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictive measures to contain it. The disappearance of a large number of tourists managed to "erase" years of economic growth in the Black Sea municipalities, and the local labor markets experienced a significant decrease in employment, especially in Nessebar and Sozopol. The poor performance of the local education system does not paint a rosy future for the structure and qualification of the workforce, but positive migration provides grounds for moderate optimism.

The Impact of the Crisis

The municipal economies of the Burgas region were among the hardest hit by the crisis and the restrictive measures in 2020. While industrial centers recovered relatively quickly after the lifting of restrictions and the resumption of international trade, the tourist cities - and the region concentrates more than half of the summer seaside tourism in Bulgaria - suffered from a strong contraction in the flow of foreign tourists. The COVID-19 crisis led to the sharpest decline in tourist flow in the region, with the number of visitors decreasing from 500,000-600,000 per month during the summer months to under 300,000. The decline among foreigners is particularly significant, with only 1/5 of the usual number of foreign tourists visiting the region during the crisis year.

The largest municipal economy is that of the regional center, Burgas, with BGN 1.46 billion in value added at factor cost in 2020. The economic activity is relatively high in Nessebar (BGN 184 million), Karnobat (BGN 157 million), and Pomorie (BGN 92 million) as well. However, the leading economies in the region suffered significant damage during the crisis year, with the value added in the regional center contracting by 31% compared to 2019. The decline in Nessebar is most pronounced, where the outflow of tourists led to a 56% reduction in value-added compared to the achieved BGN 417 million in 2019. Sensible declines are also observed in Sozopol (-20%), Primorsko (-20%), Tsarevo (-18%), and Pomorie (-17%), which are dependent on the hotel and restaurant industry. While before the crisis, Nessebar was leading in terms of value added per capita with nearly BGN 15,000 per person, in 2020, Burgas took the first place in the region with BGN 7,100 per person, followed by Karnobat with BGN 6,800 per person.

The effect of the crisis on the Regional Economy of Burgas is also evident in the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita for the region as a whole – in 2020, it decreased by 17% compared to 2019. This strong negative trend managed to "erase" a significant part of the long-term development of the region, as compared to 2000, it is the only region with growth below 200%; for comparison, GDP per capita in the capital increased by almost 600%, and in Plovdiv by over 400%.

Concentrated Investments

Similar to the overall economic activity, investments are predominantly concentrated in the regional center. This is particularly evident in the distribution of foreign direct investments, with 89% of their total value accumulated by the end of 2020 - 2.1 out of 2.38 billion euros - being in the municipality of Burgas. Most of the remaining foreign investments in the region are in Sozopol (77 million euros), Nessebar (108 million euros), and Karnobat (37 million euros). The largest foreign investor in Burgas is the Lukoil refinery, and in recent years, significant investments have been directed toward both the regional center and Karnobat in the automotive sector. In relative terms, the municipality of Burgas is again a leader among foreign investors, with 10.2 thousand euros per capita, placing it in the top ten in the country as a whole, not far behind the capital municipality, where the value of per capita investments reaches 10.6 thousand euros by the end of 2020. Foreign investments are also relatively high in Sozopol (5.7 thousand euros per capita) and Nessebar (3.7 thousand euros per capita).

Similarly, but with even greater concentration, the distribution of expenditures for the acquisition of long-term tangible assets is also observed. During the pandemic year of 2020, 566 million leva were spent on machinery, land, and buildings in the regional center of Burgas, 96 million leva in Nessebar, while in the other municipalities, the volume of investments in long-term tangible assets is below 50 million leva. The slowdown in investment spending by companies in 2020 reflects mainly the expectations of weaker activity during the tourist season and the slowdown in construction in the region.

The Labor Market Collapse

The economic problems of 2020 inevitably affected the labor market in the Burgas municipalities. Since there is no extensive data on employment at the municipal level, we use the share of employees under labor and employment contracts from the entire population aged 15 and over. The largest decline in 2020 compared to the previous year was observed in the municipality of Nessebar, where the share of employees in the population over 15 years of age decreased by a significant 28 percentage points. There is also a significant deterioration in this indicator in Sozopol (-6.5 points) and Primorsko (-9.8 points), where employers did not hire a significant part of their seasonal workforce. The only positive trend in 2020 is observed in Ruen and Aytos, whose local economies are least dependent on the tourism sector, and the decline in the share of employees in the regional center is 1.7 percentage points.

Despite the sharp deterioration, Nessebar remains the most active local labor market in 2020, with a share of employees of 42%, compared to 39% in the municipality of Burgas and only 16% in Aytos, which performs the weakest in this indicator. Municipalities in the Burgas region also have relatively low unemployment rates, as of the end of 2021. According to the data from the Employment Agency, unemployment in the regional center was 2.6%, and in Nessebar - 5.1%. Exceptions are Sredets (11% unemployment) and Malko Tarnovo (8%), whose labor market problems are the result of trends and factors that developed long before the events of 2020.

Shortage in Education

Against the backdrop of the not particularly good achievements of the local labor market and the slowdown in the local economy, education in Burgas also does not provide much reason for optimism. Of great concern is the high percentage of early school dropouts in smaller municipalities, exceeding 5% of all students in Pomorie, Malko Tarnovo, Kameno, Sredets, and Sungurlare. These are young people who will face particular difficulties in integrating into the workforce, as it becomes increasingly difficult to employ individuals with primary and lower education.

Significant differences are also observed in the achievements of students in the region in various external evaluations and matriculation exams. While the municipality of Burgas reports some of the highest results in external evaluations after seventh grade, both in mathematics (average score of 47/100) and Bulgarian language (63/100), the surrounding municipalities perform significantly weaker, especially in mathematics. Similar patterns are seen in the results of matriculation exams, with students in the municipality of Burgas achieving an average grade of "Good" (4.41) in Bulgarian language and literature, which is significantly above the national average, while the others fall within the range of 3-3.50. The significant problem of a high dropout rate combined with the poor achievements of graduating students creates a risk of a serious shortage of skilled workforce soon.

Positive Migration

The year of the pandemic brought about significant (and varied) changes in demographic trends, and the municipalities in the Burgas region are no exception. Unlike almost all other parts of the country, most municipalities in Burgas have been attracting population over the past five years, but the positive migration processes intensified in 2020. The regional center, however, is an exception, where the natural population growth rate becomes negative at -0.9‰. This, however, is characteristic of most major cities, including Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna. On the other hand, within the year, the population of Kameno increased by 13‰, and Sozopol saw an increase of 7.7‰.

Despite the positive net migration, all Burgas municipalities experience pronounced negative natural processes, with none of them having a birth rate exceeding the mortality rate. Seven of them have a negative natural population growth rate exceeding -10‰, and in the regional center, it reaches -5.1‰. For this reason, it is not surprising that all Burgas municipalities are witnessing significant aging processes. Nevertheless, the influx of population from other parts of the country and even from abroad may create opportunities for the development of the local economy.

Author: Adrian Nikolov

In March 2022, the Institute for Market Economics released a film called ”2% in your municipality”, which presents the concept of financial decentralization and investing a fifth of income tax revenues in local economies. A key theme in the film is interregional inequalities and opportunities for compensating those in the proposed new model. Given that the Parliament has finally managed to pass the budget for 2022, one can focus once again on finding long-term solutions to issues in local finances. The big concern regarding financial decentralization, which needs addressing, is the problem of regional disparities.

The proposed local finances model has two main aspects, which are crucial for the regional development of the country. On the one hand, there is the redistribution of a fifth of income tax revenues toward the municipalities (a sum of around 850 million leva in 2021), which would incentivize significantly regional development and would also boost the potential of economic centers throughout the whole country. On the other, there is the reform in the compensatory subsidy (330 million leva in 2020), which would redirect funds from the larger and more prosperous municipalities towards the smaller and less wealthy ones. The increased financial autonomy of municipalities would allow for a genuine reduction of regional inequality.

IME’s paper analyses the effects of existing compensatory mechanisms in the budget relationships between the municipalities and the central government and outlines a clear path towards reforming the compensatory subsidy in the model, which would feature sharing income tax revenues. Calculations show that at least seventy municipalities would not need a compensatory subsidy, should the new model be introduced, as they would collect higher revenues based on their own resources. These include most municipalities with populations above 30 000 people, as well as some smaller ones with higher concentration of economic activity.

For the remaining municipalities, where funds from the subsidy would exceed those received under the reform, additional 115 million leva would be needed to close the gap. This sum would ensure that smaller municipalities with declining populations would receive just as much funding as they do under the current model. In fact, with around a third of the current subsidy, the poorest municipalities could be given the same level of support as they do now. In the paper, the Institute also presents a simplified model, which aims to show that the money saved from the subsidy could be targeted toward closing regional disparities.

An additional proposal is a balancing mechanism, fitted within the reform. It would redistribute up to 20% of revenues gained from the reform towards smaller and poorer municipalities. This balancing mechanism could supplement or partially replace the compensatory subsidy by providing resources for equalizing transfers directly from the sharing of income tax revenues. Such mechanisms exist in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe with experience in decentralizing tax revenues and could boost the financial autonomy of local governments in Bulgaria.

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The economic disruptions caused by the Covid-19 restrictions have affected the various parts of the country in different ways. Data about regional GDP in Bulgaria for 2020 allow for assessing the effects of the pandemic through a single indicator. While most districts remained largely unaffected, those specialized in tourism marked a setback worth many years of growth.

In 2020, Sofia continues to generate almost half of the country’s GDP – 51,3 billion leva, followed by Plovdiv (9,7 billion leva) and Varna (7,4 billion leva). The smallest regional economic centers – Vidin and Silistra – mark outputs of 726 million leva and 892 million leva, respectively. In per capita terms, Sofia is again on top of the list with 38,9 thousand leva per person, which is twice the output per person of Sofia District (17,2 thousand leva) and Vratsa (15,6 thousand leva).

The long-term trend of regional GDP shows that in the past 20 years growth in the country occurred at different speeds. Expectedly, the capital city leads once more with an increase in GDP per capita of 557% between 2000 and 2020. Growth of 410-420% can be seen in Plovdiv, Sofia Province, and Kardzhali, where GDP rises due to local industry. While output in the first two provinces grows smoothly over time, Karzdzhali’s economy expanded rapidly in the past couple of years, driven by the newly opened gold mine in Krumovgrad. In most provinces GDP per capita grows more modestly – within the range of 250% to 350% for the last two decades. The effect of the 2020 crisis is the most pronounced in the long-term trend of Burgas, the economy of which marked the slowest growth up to 2020 – only 159%. This underwhelming performance is solely a result of the Covid-19 setback.

In 2020 most districts enjoy a mild increase in output per person. The common negative trend is driven by Burgas and Varna, which attract most of the tourists in the country during the summer. The annual decrease in Burgas amounts to 17%, while in Varna it is 5%. The more extreme contraction in Burgas is due to the higher intensity of tourism in the province in the years before the Pandemic. Moreover, the economy of Varna is more diversified, including other prominent sectors like manufacturing. Blagoevgrad, where winter tourism suffered from the first wave of restrictions, shows no change in GDP from 2019 to 2020.

One should mention that current GDP per capita data do not reflect the anticipated changes from the census from the end of 2021. Accounting for them would result in a convergence between provincial figures for GDP per capita. The lead of the capital will narrow down after updating the data on its population. Nevertheless, the conclusions from the 2020 data would not change much – the economies of the tourist regions carry the heaviest burden from the Covid-19 downturn, while those of the other provinces continue to grow, albeit more slowly.