The number of Bulgarians living abroad was roughly between three and four million, Bulgarian BTA news agency quoted Raina Mandjoukova, head of the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad on October 5 2009.

She was addressing the second gathering of the World Parliament of Bulgarians (WPB) in the Black Sea city of Varna which unites organisations of Bulgarian communities abroad.

Although there were no official statistics on the number of Bulgarians living abroad, Mandjoukova said that the true figure was no more than four million.

There were also about 60 000 unprocessed Bulgarian citizenship applications, some dating back to 2004, she said.

Mandjoukova, a recent appointee, noted that the number of employees dealing with files has doubled and that the process has been expedited.

The WPB will ask Bulgarian's Parliament to expedite the procedure for granting citizenship to people of Bulgarian descent living in Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and in Asia.

The same day, Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily said that draft amendments to the Bulgarian Citizenship Act provided for easing the procedure of granting citizenship to ethnic Bulgarians graduating from Bulgarian universities. They would be able to receive citizenship within three months of submitting their applications, according to amendments worked out by Bozhidar Dimitrov, Minister without portfolio, responsible for Bulgarians abroad.

Another change related to reinstating Bulgarians living in Macedonia, Pomoravlje (Eastern Serbia along the three Morava rivers), the so-called Western Outlands (southeastern Serbia and eastern Macedonia) and western Thrace (Greece).

Bulgarian lost these areas that are home to an ethnic Bulgarian population after the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty marked the end of World War II for the country.

In 1942, when, as part of the Axis Powers, Bulgaria retained administrative control over these regions, people living there were granted Bulgarian citizenship.

In 1951, however, Bulgaria's communist regime decided to revoke the 1942 decree without asking Bulgarians living in these areas whether they wanted to give back their citizenship or not.

Dimitrov's idea is to give ethnic Bulgarians living in the three regions, and their descendants, the right to reinstate their Bulgarian citizenship. This would happen up to six months after they apply.

For the period 2002-June 2009 a total of 43 176 ethnic Bulgarians have been granted Bulgarian citizenship with 3000 refusals issued annually. The system allowed only for 10 000 applications to be reviewed a year.