Bulgaria Mulls Setting Up Agency to Restrict Land Use by Foreigners

Bulgaria may set up an agency or commission to impose restrictive measures on land use by foreigners, according to Agriculture Minister Dimitar Grekov.

In a Saturday interview for Darik radio, he explained that one of the conditions would be to offer the land to Bulgarian producers first.

He claimed that such practices were applied in countries like Denmark and Hungary, adding that the rules would be drafted so as to not contradict EU law.

Grekov pointed out that foreigners would have to prove that they had spent a certain period of time in Bulgaria and that they had cultivated land in the country over the past few years.

He suggested that foreigners were not that interested in buying land in Bulgaria but in renting it, illustrating his point with recent talks with representatives of a delegation from Pakistan.

He pointed out that by end-2013 Bulgaria's Parliament was to vote on legal amendments stipulating that owners of pastures, grassland, and common land would not be entitled to EU aid unless they were involved in livestock rearing.

Grekov informed that there were cases of land owners living in big cities and receiving subsidies without cultivating the land or rearing animals.

He made clear that encouraging livestock rearing would be a priority sphere during the next EU programming period (2014-2020).

Grekov emphasized that the different spheres of agriculture were not to be pitted against each other, adding that the aim was to help small farmers expand their production.

He said that Bulgaria intended to start paying subsides depending on the size of the land plot, stressing ones of up to 30 hectares, in a bid to encourage small farmers to develop their production.

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