site.btaPresident Radev to Hold Working Meeting with Protesting Grain Producers

President Rumen Radev will hold a working meeting with representatives of the National Grain Producers Association here on Thursday, the head of State’s press secretariat reported.  The meeting is prompted by Bulgarian grain producers’ protest against Ukrainian grain imports.

Nikolay Kirov, head of the Union of Grain Producers in Burgas (on the Black Sea), told BTA that after the meeting with President Radev, they will decide whether the three-day protests will continue. Kirov joined a protest demonstration at the Kardam border control checkpoint together with 60 farmers, members of two of the biggest branch organizations in Burgas Region. Grain producers blocked the Danube Bridge border crossing as well.

On Wednesday, hundreds of grain producers from the regions of Burgas, Varna, and Dobrich protested by using agricultural machinery to block traffic in Northeastern Bulgaria. Protests were held in other places across the country as well. National Grain Producers Association Deputy Chair Iliya Prodanov said that producers demand an end the duty-free import of Ukrainian goods into the EU, protection for Bulgarian production, and fair prices for Bulgarian products. In reaction, caretaker Minister of Agriculture and Food Yavor Gechev told reporters that the caretaker government will ask Brussels for additional measures to ensure corridors for the export of Ukrainian grain.