site.btaBSP-United Left Issues Declaration Supporting Four Civil Organizations' Supermarket Boycott on February 13

The parliamentary group of BSP - United Left fully supports the boycott of supermarkets planned by four civil organizations for February 13, says a declaration read out by Socialist MP Nina Dimitrova in Parliament on Friday. The organizations are Consumers' Federation in Bulgaria, Affordable and Quality Food Association, The System is Killing Us, and the United Pensioners' Union.  

"This is not just a protest: it is a cry for justice from hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian citizens who cannot afford the most basic food products. While pensions and wages are rising marginally, prices of basic food products have increased by over 120% in the last five years," the declaration reads. Particularly outrageous is the fact that goods in foreign retail chains in Bulgaria are more expensive than those in their own countries, where the standard of living is incomparably higher than Bulgarians', the document reads further. The biggest retail chains make billions in turnover a year and their multi-million profits are exported to their parent companies. 

The BSP - United Left noted that 800,000 Bulgarian pensioners live around the poverty line and another 700,000 Bulgarians are working poor who barely feed their families.

"In neighbouring Croatia, after a civil boycott, the government imposed a price ceiling on 70 basic food products. Bulgarian citizens are no less worthy than Croatian ones," Dimitrova said. She added that Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and the Republic of North Macedonia have announced civil boycotts in succession. On February 10, citizens of Kosovo will also boycott supermarkets, while on February 19 Greeks announced a boycott of food, household bills, and electronic services, the MP said. 

The BSP - United Left insists on urgent adoption of legislation and approval of a list of basic food products with marginal mark-up, she said. The Socialists also want the control bodies to start applying the strict sanctions for speculative profits provided for in the law and the Bulgarian institutions to insist on ending the double standard in food prices in Bulgaria and Europe.

"There should be no shoppers in the shops on February 13 to show that we will no longer tolerate price arbitrariness," Dimitrova concluded.  

On Thursday, BSP - United Left tabled a bill to set a maximum markup cap on staple foods.