Bulgarians were worried that a number of young people would leave the country after Bulgaria’s EU accession on January 1 2007, Deutsche Welle (DW) said.

Bulgarian towns were already growing smaller and birth rate was decreasing rapidly, DW said. Some towns were almost abandoned by their young population.

DW quoted the deputy mayor of one such town as saying that it would be very hard to attract back young people who had left for countries like Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain.

A number of Bulgarians have left for Western countries with a three-month tourist visa, but have stayed to work illegally in hotels, farms or at construction sites.

Official information in Bulgaria said that more than a million people left the country since 1989 when the population was nine million. “The mass emigration of young women has aggravated a demographic crisis,” DW said.

Bulgaria registered one of the world's lowest birth rates, DW said. The infant mortality rate was 12.3 per 1000. European average infant mortality was 4.5 per thousand.