Bulgarian Tobacco Producers to Postpone Planned Protests

Source from:  Novinite.com 02/25/2015

Tobacco producers from the village of Dolno Osenovo in Southwestern Bulgaria. Photo: BGNES/EPA

Bulgarian tobacco producers decided to postpone the protests and road closures, which they planned to stage on Friday.

Following negotiations in the Agriculture Ministry, which lasted for three hours, an agreement was reached for the fairer distribution of subsidies, daily Dnevnik reports.

Measures are foreseen for preventing "hollow firms" from receiving subsidies for quantities of tobacco that have not been produced.

Although the tobacco producers were still discontent, they admitted that they are ready to accept that the larger share of the foreseen subsidies, which amount to BGN 170 M, should go to the smaller producers.

According to the proposal, 70 % of the funds will go to producers of Oriental tobacco, while 30 % will be allocated to producers of other types of tobacco.

However this is not the final proposal and the decision will be taken at the next meeting, which is scheduled to take place on March 5.

Then it should also be discussed the introduction of a ceiling on the payments for the separate types of tobacco and amendment to the framework of the reference period.

On the basis of an existing agreement between Bulgaria and the EU, the aid to tobacco producers is calculated on the amount of tobacco that was produced during three years - 2007, 2008 and 2009.