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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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Office market in Budapest, the western capitals and its opponents
There was an old joke about 19th century Austrian prime minister Prince Metternich who once was reported to say that Europe ended somewhere at the eastern outskirts of the capital city of Vienna. The second part of the joke is that when Hungarian* nationalists had heard that statement they enjoyed very much adding it as one more reason for their claim to break apart from the Austrian empire. We are living now not in the first half of the 19th but at the beginning of 21st century. The time since then has changed considerably so does the mentality of the people from the both sides of the Austrian-Hungarian border. Nowadays the Hungarians are those who would wish to erase the western border symbols and thus to become a part of Europe. On the other side of the border though there isn't huge deficiency of Austrians who would prefer to see their country as much as possible as it is in their dreams - the farthest eastern part of the European civilization**. But not everyone in Hungary is rushing to see his country becoming a full member of EU as we'll see later. As in all the major cities in Central Europe the office market in Budapest suffered from the disproportion between the ever increasing supply in the 90s and not so dynamic demand. As a result at the beginning of 2001 in the capital of Hungary more than 150 000 sq.meters (1,5 million sq.feet) of office space were vacant. The next result was the lowering in the recent years of the rents and yields. If 6 years ago 100 sq.meters office class "A" could have be rented for $6500 per month now the same office may be found for only $3000 per month. The rents for the average quality offices in the same period dropped from $30 to $15 per sq.meter per month. Thus the only way of stimulating the office market in Budapest like in the other big cities in Central Europe is by attracting more foreign, i.e. western investors. But some Hungarians still can't see this obvious dependence which explains the anti-foreigner feelings erupting in the country from time to time. The recent such event was a meeting on 16th March of 50 000 far-right party supporters who protested against the "selling the country" to foreigners. The leader of this far-right Truth and Life Party - Istvan Csurka, called to return "Hungary to Hungarians" and linked the recent period of economic openness with the Jewish settlement of Palestine from the second half of the 20th century***. How to appease this extreme part of the Hungarian public opinion and to accustom it to the idea that more not less foreign capitals will be useful for the national economy? There were many examples in the human history of how isn't appropriate to deal with such problem. Iran of 70s was among the best examples of a state policy of suppressing the opponents of the process of westernization. The results are known - the forces against the foreign influence took the power and the country was pulled back in its civilization development. Hungary of course isn't threatened to become next Iran with a new Homeini at the top but there is always a risk of government changes that could block the foreign investments. That's why the more intelligent way of dealing with this problem is by trying to bring together the enemies of the foreign investments in the public opinion mainstream. That means that as much as possible people have to benefit from the foreign capital influx. * - Hungary occupied eastern part of Austrian empire. ** - The Austrian as well as the German government have proposed to the EU to set a provisional periods for all the countries to be invited into the Union in the coming years. In these periods (considered to be up to 7 years) the citizens from the new member states won't be allowed to work in EU countries. This proposals were received with strong disapproval from almost all candidate countries but still have to be discussed by all the EU members. *** - Csurka was quoted by AP to say: "Let's keep the Palestinians in mind... The foreign capital is buying up Hungary's properties just like when the Jewish settlers arrived in Palestine... We'll be reduced to becoming stone-throwing Palestinian youths". --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Hungary.
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