With a delay of 20 days from the preliminary deadline, the state will pay the “Ukrainian aid” promised to the farmers. It is in the amount of nearly 300 million BGN and will cover 50 thousand farmers. The money was collected from the restructuring of the budget of the DF “Agriculture”, as well as co-financing from the state budget. This became clear after a meeting of Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev with representatives of the Agriculture sector, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lyudmila Petkova and Agriculture Minister Georgi Takhov.
The reason for the meeting was “Ukrainian aid”, which was concluded with an agreement between representatives of the agricultural sector and the previous government on February 12, and was supposed to be paid by April 22.
“We made a decision and all the representatives of the sector agreed that they will wait until May 15, for which we thank them from the government. We committed until May 15 that this aid will be paid. Means and ways have been found to make this happen,” said the Prime Minister. who defined the meeting as unprecedented because never before have so many representatives of the sector been present.
Acting Minister of Finance Lyudmila Petkova added that the financial assistance for the so-called Ukrainian deal was not fully secured.
“In the concluded agreement, it is written that by restructuring the plan, the fund account will be paid the Ukrainian aid, but the restructuring is not enough to include financial means to support all sectors, which requires additional provision of funds from the budget,” commented the acting finance minister. According to her, these additional funds from the budget will significantly reduce the risk regarding the provision of funds for the Ministry and the “Agriculture” fund under European programs, BTA reported.
Official Minister of Agriculture Georgi Tahov pointed out that the funds are provided in full for the first upcoming payment. He explained that the May 15 deadline was dictated by the technology of the payment itself, not because the government would continue to seek money.
“We just have to go through a technological procedure that goes through decision mechanisms and really by May 15, everyone will get what they expected in full,” said the Acting Minister of Agriculture.
The Chairman of the Bulgarian Agrarian Chamber Kostadin Kostadinov thanked that the funds for the so-called “Ukrainian aid” has been found and it is hoped that they will be paid by May 15 to start work on the second tranche of funds as well. He added that during the meeting they also discussed “policies, not just money”. Kostadinov specified that the problems with irrigation were discussed, as well as with the workforce and other problems in the sector.
The Chairman of the Union of Cattle Breeders, Dimitar Zorov, believes that an agreement was signed with the previous government, but without securing the funding. The funds “were not included in the budget”, he emphasized. Zorov hopes that the problems with the delayed direct payments campaign will be overcome.
Acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev promised that whatever depends on the government will be respected and the payment under the so-called “Ukrainian aid” will be done by May 15.
Today’s meeting was reached after the deadline for payment of funds to farmers expired on April 22. At the end of February, the State Fund “Agriculture” announced that from March 20 to April 9, farmers can apply for state aid schemes “Aid to support the liquidity of farmers to overcome the negative economic impact of Russian aggression against Ukraine.” and “Aid to support the liquidity of farmers, producers of grain and oil crops, to overcome the negative economic impact of Russian aggression against Ukraine”. The Management Board of the Fund made this decision in fulfillment of the commitments made by the Denkov cabinet in the signed agreement with the farmers. The agreement between the government and representatives of the Agriculture sector was signed on February 12. It came after a series of protests by farmers demanding a review of the proposal for the distribution of aid and the budget, which would prevent mass bankruptcies in Bulgarian agriculture, as well as clear guarantees for legislative changes to ensure the sustainability of the sector.
