Bulgaria is among the countries that have given the most money to their farmers, says EU Agriculture Commissioner

Bulgaria is among the countries in the European Union that have given the most state aid to farmers, said European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, who is on a working visit in Bulgaria on May 21.

"In 2023 the situation improved, but the gap between imports and exports remained. It was necessary to support agricultural producers. The other group are the large farmers who exceeded the 280 thousand euro threshold. Bulgaria gave state aid. In the EU, this aid amounts to EUR 452 million. It is important to say that in Bulgaria things are going well, but the figures for state aid are much lower. We come to the conclusion that more substantial measures in the EU are important, so that there are no big differences in foreign imports and exports," said Wojciechowski.

Caretaker Minister of agriculture, Georgi Tahov, hopes that payments to Bulgarian farmers will catch up with EU ones.

"First of all, we need to lower the administrative burden on our farmers in order to make the receipt of aid to them predictable. Secondly, we propose to extend by one year the period of projects to support rural development and forestry," he said.

The minister also called for an increase in the thresholds for the so-called "Ukrainian aid", as in some European countries it is calculated per hectare of land and per head of livestock.

"It so happens that our big farmers reached these thresholds already in 2022," Tahov said.