Family law

Planned changes to the system of maternity leave payments, promoted last week by the State Health Insurance Fund, FZOM, called "Speedy Payment of Maternity Leave", will encourage discrimination against women at the workplace, rights activists say.

Six Bulgarian nationals face charges of running an illegal adoption ring after police in Evia and Athens were able to stop one of the members from going through with the illegal adoption of two babies and an older child.

Civil society organizations and parties demonstrated around Turkey to protest the imminent adoption of a motion

Seven suspected members of a cross-border racket alleged to have mediated in the sale of babies from Bulgaria to childless couples from Greece faced a prosecutor in Trikala, central Greece, on Wednesay.

Advent International and a Bulgarian-Russian consortium headed by businessman Denis Barekov are reportedly the key bidders for nationalized Austrian bank Hypo Alpe Adria.

The bank, which Austria nationalized in 2009 to prevent its collapse, is to sell its Balkan network by mid-2015 at the behest of the EU Commission.

Last week two women from Bulgaria were jailed after being flown from their native country to Manchester to marry Pakistani men facing deportation, reports The Telegraph. 

Nadya Kamenova, 20, and Temenuzhka Slavcheva, 21, were recruited by sham marriage organisers on Skype and agreed to marry the men, one of whose student visas had been rescinded. 

Macedonia's main Sts Cyril and Methodius University has decided to establish a new "Institute for Family Studies" that will teach courses such as “Family Values and Morality”, “ Family and Social Deviations”, “Family and Religion” and “Family in Antiquity”.