Mountain development policies in Bulgaria: Practices and challenges

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to analyze the regulatory framework and related geographic problems of regional development policies that concern Bulgarian mountains in the post-socialist period. Based on the need to establish and implement a state policy for integrated sustainable governance of mountain regions in this country, the investigation identifies and structures the challenges to regional development policy making. At the European Union (EU) scale, the most important challenge is related to the absence of territorial policy integration and inept priority setting of regional development. Mountain areas of Southeastern Europe need to become a special focus of EU policy making because they make up the most sizeable parts of the Union’s "deepest" periphery. In these areas, the overlap of peripheries of different geographic scales and diverse nature (physical geography limitations, depopulation and aging, severely lagging economies, and increasing political insecurity at the external EU borders) additionally intensifies their unfavorable characteristics. At the state scale, identification of the territorial units eligible for assistance from the hilly belt presents the most socially and politically sensitive challenge for both geographers and regional policy makers. Policy instability, the inadequate scale of territorial governance of mountainous regions, and significant deficiencies in territorial policy integration are also among the challenges to sustainable mountain development policies in Bulgaria.