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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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Romania: Security and booming market
The last almost twenty years were dramatic for the long and turbulent history of Romania. Up to the end of the 1980s, it was under the dictatorship of one of the most brutal persons in the recent European history, Nicolae Ceausescu. After a revolution in which the dictator and his wife were arrested, judged, sentenced to death and executed, the power went to a heterodox bloc of reformist-minded former communist party apparatchiks. For many years Romania was politically among the least stable countries in Eastern Europe; it suffices to mention several times when thousands of coal-miners were called to the capital Bucharest to 'deal with' the political opposition. Up to 1997 the politics was a matter of force. Not surprisingly, the real estate market was 'sleeping' at very low levels, an average of $150-200 per sq. meter in some better locations; even less in the countryside. At that point, circa 1997, for reasons that fall outside this analysis, Romania made an unequivocal political choice to join the West. The politics became a game with clearer rules; the economics started following the logic of private entrepreneurship. After missing the invitation for NATO membership in 1997, largely for political reasons, Romania decisively turned back to nationalist and socialist alternatives in the Balkan region, symbolized by the Serbian president Milosevic. Instead, Romania opted for joining the Western organizations such as NATO and EU. After years of negotiations, western conditionality, painful reforms, several personal changes in the political leadership, this integration succeeded. In 2004, the country became NATO member. In early 2007 it joined the EU. Despite the problems, unlike Bulgaria, Brussels recently didn't penalize Romania. As a result of the close economic integration with the West, the Romanian economy is booming now. Almost double-digit rates of growth propelled the once poor country into the ranks of the middle-income nations. The prospects are good for this and the next year. The real estate market is also envy for the Europeans. After the long plateau of the 1990s, the boom since then has increased the prices by a factor of ten. Romania has still to grow to reach the Central European levels. Right now, perhaps for the first time in history, it's considered as top investment destination on the continent.
Romania country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Romania.
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