🇧🇬 Bulgaria

The population has fallen from roughly 7.5 million at its 2011 peak to about 6.4 million, with net emigration commonly running at tens of thousands annually; this is a contraction of approximately 15%, not convergence. A median age of 45.2, extremely low fertility, and the departure of mobile young adults shrink both the workforce and tax base while mechanically flattering aggregate unemployment. The supplied 3.4% unemployment and 13% youth rates are less convincing than the rising 5.2–6.2% and 14.7–17.8% trends, because labour-force exit and denominator shrinkage flatter the headline.

Bulgaria has a National AI Strategy and the Digital Bulgaria 2021–2026 programme, so the paperwork is not wholly blank. Execution remains constrained by weak R&D and digital investment, skills mismatches, poor labour-market intermediation, and no EU-scale retraining or industrial insurance against displacement.