European Court Finds Bulgaria Breached Former Tsar’s Property Rights

Simeon II of Bulgaria at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid in June 2016. Photo: EPA/FERNANDO ALVARADO

The court found that Bulgaria breached their rights by imposing a ban on any commercial exploitation of forestland owned by the siblings. The court said it found that the Bulgarian authorities "failed to justify the broad measures it had instituted to protect the forestland".

"The court found that the actions by the Bulgarian authorities had placed a disproportionate individual burden on the applicants. The measures had been extraordinary, given that legislation providing for the conservation of forests had already been in place, had lasted too long, and had not been amenable to judicial review, leading to a violation," the ruling said.

But the court found that the siblings were not entitled to restitution of estates at Saragyol and Sitnyakovo, which they had claimed.

It also rejected claims that they were discriminated against on the basis of origin and social position.

The European judgment follows a ruling in July by Sofia's Court of Appeal, which decided that the Royal Palace of Vrana in the outskirts of the capital is the private property of Simeon II.

This ended a decade-long legal battle with the Bulgarian state over the ownership of the palace, nationalised following the former royal family's exile in 1946, after the start of the Communist regime. In 1947, all crown properties were transferred to the state.

In 2020, Simeon II also managed to get back the Tsarska Bistritsa palace near the winter resort of Borovets.

Simeon Borisov von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born in 1937 and after the death of his father in 1943, he became tsar as a six-year old child - the last tsar of Bulgaria. Royal authority was...