site.btaPM Borissov: "We Will Seek a Way to Respond in European Manner to Greece's Non-European Actions"

PM Borissov: "We Will Seek a Way to Respond in European Manner to Greece's Non-European Actions"

Shoumen, Northeastern Bulgaria, April 23 (BTA) - Taking a journalist's question here on Friday, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said a way will be sought to respond in a European manner to Greece's non-European actions. He was referring to the plans of Bulgarian road hauliers to block the border with Greece to all truck, bus and car traffic from April 29 to May 8 in retaliation for a 40-day-long border blockade by protesting Greek farmers in January and February 2016.

"On the one hand, the hauliers are right: for 45 days the Greek farmers mocked Bulgarian hauliers and drivers; the media showed the inhuman conditions in which our drivers stood at the border for days in a row, in the cold and dirt," Borissov told journalists. He recalled that he had talked several times with his Greek counterpart during the farmers' blockades but in the end he had had to cross the border into Greece and tell the protestors that "this outrage will not continue".

In his words, the Greek farmers' actions placed Bulgarian hauliers in humiliating conditions, and he does not support such actions. "I would meet with them [the road hauliers], I would ask them to not do this. I would also seek an initiative with the Greek government - let us guarantee that neither they nor we will do such things," he noted. The Bulgarian PM added that he will reach an agreement with the road hauliers to not block the border crossings with Greece but that the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras should also make such a commitment.

"I will deal with this on Monday or Tuesday. I hope that in the end, as good neighbours with the Greeks, they will be able to come here for our feasts and our people will go there on a holiday," Borissov added.