I told you that I can’t keep calm, because I’m a Bulgarian.
However, I decided to calm down. Not that I have changed my views about the ridiculousness of the #avoidBritain campaign, which will aim to discredit the UK in front of Bulgaria and Romania, so that we don’t “invade” the country in January 2014, but I think that there is no point to get angry.
#AvoidBritain doesn’t humiliate Bulgaria or Romania, it humiliates the UK. Moreover, I have to underline that it has nothing to do with the majority of the ordinary people in either of the countries, but just with a group of British politicians. So, maybe it is logical to say, that the only ones that should feel humiliated in a way are exactly these UK politicians. I can’t imagine that an adult, even more, an adult who has interacted with other people before, will think that #avoidBritain might work.
So having calmed down a bit, despite being a Bulgarian, I want to tell you what a great idea a group 
of Bulgarian youths have – to show the world why we #chooseBulgaria. The site is only in Bulgarian, but in the end, one of its main aims is to calm us down. It has managed so far. Many Bulgarians are sharing their views on why they #chooseBulgaria and this certainly unites us.
I really enjoy to watch how politics and media are bound together. All that is being said about the future “invasion” is drawing away the attention from many other problems that the UK is facing. I wouldn’t have minded that so much, if it wasn’t the fact that the media is missing the point with the awful situation of the Bulgarian and Romanian students in the UK. I emailed so many journalists to remember them that it is not a good way of doing journalism, if you don’t present all sides of an issue. No one answered. Does this mean that the media here prefers to cover only the topics that the politicians want to talk about?
I would even not accept an excuse about how busy the journalist are, because in the letter they read the whole information that they might need, even quotes from the law.
To summarize the problem with the Bulgarian and Romanian students once again, we are being discriminated even in comparison to non-EU students, as only we need the magical “Yellow card” to be able to work and finish our studies. If you are lucky, you need to wait 6 months to receive it (a month ago this number was 11), although the work permits should be issued in 20 days, as we qualify as “highly skilled”.
Everyone can support us with this petition.
Because of the lack of information in the UK media, I feel obliged to tell you that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs is doing its best. Today they have talked once again with the Boarder Agency and the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in two weeks time a commission should decide if the UK will apply the measures that we proposed.
I have the feeling that the outcome will be clear around the middle of March, so let’s not get overexcited about these “two weeks”.
Having said all that, I want to tell all Bulgarians and Romanians, reading my blog, not to get anything that is going on in the UK too personal. As I said yesterday to Channel 4, the point of the EU is to travel around freely. 50% of the British trade is with the EU, so they will never leave it. These means that Farage and Cameron can talk as much, as they want about us, but they will hardly do anything. Especially something as pointless, as #avoidBritain.
So… keep calm and #chooseBulgaria.
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