site.btaVine Growers Block Burgas-Sunny Beach Road to Protest against Grape Reporting

Vine growers and winegrowers from Burgas region briefly blocked a road to Sunny Beach resort protesting against an ordinance of the Finance Ministry about reporting of wine grapes. Vineyard owners deployed heavy equipment at one of the roundabouts along the stretch in the Pomorie area. According to provisions on the conditions and procedures for the implementation of fiscal control for goods with high fiscal risk each producer must collect his production and weigh it directly in the vineyard, National Chamber of Vine and Wine (NCVW) Chairman Yordan Chorbadzhiyski told BTA.

According to him, the requirements of this ordinance are not applicable to the wine sector. Chorbadzhiyski pointed to a lack of scales in the fields, as well as difficult broadband access in remote vineyards, which is necessary for reporting production to the National Revenue Agency. This was confirmed on Wednesday in Pomorie by Anton Polukchiev, chairman of the South Black Sea branch chamber in Pomorie. 

This will burden grape growers and processors with additional administrative burden, he said. 

"We are counting on the MPs to repeal this regulation, which concerns not only grapes, but also fruits and vegetables. In our sector we cannot apply it. The enterprise must return the grapes if there is no report or there is a discrepancy in weight. This would block the work of a processing plant for hours, and the grapes would simply have to be thrown away. Bulgaria is regaining its position on the wine map. We win more than 70-80% of the samples sent to world wine competitions. This is visible, but unfortunately our administration wants to kill the sector. This is a pity, because Bulgarian producers are at the world level," Chorbadzhiyski said. 

In response to the announced protest actions by winegrowers and winemakers, the National Revenue Agency (NRA) on Tuesday circulated its position, in which it pointed out that the institution has been monitoring the movement of high fiscal risk goods identified as such since 2014 because of their use in value added tax fraud schemes.

Pomorie Mayor Ivan Alexiev attended Wednesday's protest winegrowers and vine-growers. He said that wine grapes should not be accepted as excisable goods. Protesters announced that if the problem is not resolved as soon as possible, they will be forced to start effective protests in Sofia.