Bulgarian Tobacco Growers Take to the Street

Source from:  Tobacco Reporter 01/26/2011

About 10,000 tobacco growers recently blocked Bulgaria's major international road to Turkey and demanded the Bulgarian government's resignation, according to a Novinite story. The Trakiya Highway was blockaded east of Plovdiv for several hours. What was possibly the largest ever protest rally by tobacco growers was supported by activists of the opposition ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms). In addition to the government's resignation, the protesters demanded that subsidies be retained at 2010 levels and that growers receive higher prices for their tobacco. The growers demanded also that the government should re-negotiate with the European Commission the conditions for supporting the tobacco production sector. Enditem