Bulgarian Socialist MEP Demands Compensation for Bulgarian Agricultural Producers

Bulgarian socialist MEP Momchil Nekov has called on the European Commission to pay more attention to the situation in Bulgaria.

In a Monday statement in Strasbourg, Nekov underscored that unfavorable weather conditions had resulted in the destruction of a portion of the harvest and the local agricultural producers were exposed to extra pressure over the increase in imports from the EU.

"It is inadmissible for all agricultural producers to be lumped together in the competition for allocations under the highly insufficient compensation of a total of EUR 125 M, which ran out in less than ten days," Nekov said.

The Bulgarian MEP, a member of the European Parliament's Agriculture and Rural Development Committee, emphasized that agricultural producers in the latest EU members were facing greater difficulties than old EU countries due to the lower amount of subsidies.

He expressed his disapproval of the discriminatory treatment of individual producers, who were receiving lower amounts of EU subsidies compared to the ones who were members of professional organizations, adding that the ones adversely affected by the measure were yet again the new agricultural entrepreneurs in the EU.

Nekov, as cited by the BGNES news agency, insisted that the EC take into account the concrete factors in its proposal for additional measures for compensating the damage caused by the Russian food import ban.

MEPs demanded higher compensations for agricultural producers, stressing that the aid had to be provided from other EU funds, not only the agricultural budget.