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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Finland - a decade long road away from RussiaCouple of decades ago everything in Europe was supposed to be clear - on one side there were communist countries (Soviet block) and on the other side there were western countries (NATO). These days I looked at the history book of my daughter and saw the same opposition. In fact there were also many countries that did't fill into this classification, e.g. Sweden or Switzerland or Austria. They were "western" by their social and political system but they never didn't take part of NATO. Some countries in Europe were "communist" by their political regimes such as Yugoslavia or Albania, but they were completely separated militarily from the former Soviet Union and its allies. Belgrade during the Cold War even had signed a military agreement for cooperation with Washington. On the other hand there was Finland which in case of "Hot" war had to ally itself with the Soviet Union against the Western powers. So we come to our topic - Finland, the country with a liberal government and a free market economy since the World War II that for decades was in fact a part (at least economically) of the Soviet block. Did you hear about an organization in the past called COCOM? Or about the "Trojan horse" in the ancient Greek mythology? No! So let's make a brief explanation. COCOM before the end of the Cold War was a coordination committee of almost all NATO countries* responsible for compiling lists of strategic goods that the Western powers wanted to deny the Communists'. The main criteria for one country to be called a "communist" and put under trade embargo of COCOM was the presence of ruling communist party and the state owned economy. Finland with a long border with the Soviet Union wasn't a "communist" so the trade restrictions of COCOM didn't apply on it. Thus this country played the role of the "Trojan horse" for NATO, it imported freely any kind of strategic goods and technologies from the West and without much noise re-exported it to the East, i.e. to the Soviet Union**. As a result almost half of the foreign trade of Finland till the end of 80s was made with Moscow, much more than the communist country Hungary did. Okay, 10 years ago the former Soviet Union collapsed (more exactly in August 1991) and the first victims of this collapse were the commercial relations between Moscow and its former satellites. With the death of communism COCOM was also buried. Instead of buying goods and technologies from a myriad of middlemen like Finnish companies, Moscow began to look for cheapest possible alternatives. The role of the "Trojan horse" that was played so good by the Finnish was already out of fashion. Moscow put a cross on the half of the Finnish foreign trade that throw the country into a deep recession that continued for 4 years (1990-1993). So far with the bad news. Instead of trying to save the links with Russia as long as possible, Helsinki began a long road of integration with the Western Europe. In 1993 the laws restricting the foreign ownership were abolished. The state owned companies were privatized, the economy was deregulated and some corporate taxed lowered. All this together with the traditional protection of property rights*** and the membership of Finland in the European Union (1995) and the Eurozone (1999) set up a favorable conditions for investors, local and foreign alike. After surpassing the pre-crisis economic levels in 1997 Finland pursued its growth which still continues despite the cooling word economy. ----- * - All except Iceland. ** - In the 80s almost all of the imported machinery used in the Soviet mining industry was produced in Finland. *** - In Finland there have been no cases of forced expropriation or nationalization since the World War II.
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Finland.
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