Bulgaria also wants an increase of over 1% in the budget of the COVID-19 horizontal measure, supporting the proposal of other EU member states. This stated the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Desislava Taneva during a video conference of the EU Ministers of Agriculture, which took place today. She added that with the emergency measure our country could support the most affected farmers in the agricultural sector after the end of the harvest year and analysis of the situation. "For this reason, our great expectation is the rapid completion of the procedure for amending the regulation and the opportunity to program the COVID-19 measure," said the Bulgarian minister. She stressed that at the moment in Bulgaria measures are being applied to stimulate the processing enterprises for the purchase of the agricultural products already harvested. Minister Taneva clarified that our country is ready to propose two objective criteria for the programming of horizontal COVID-19 measure.
Desislava Taneva thanked the EC for all measures and swift action taken up to now, including the successful completion and approval of the sixth notification of the Rural Development Program 2014-2020. According to her, each member state has the same problems, but different possibilities for their solution. "We expect the effect of all measures taken to lead to general support for farmers to overcome the crisis," she said.
The Bulgarian Minister also stated that Bulgaria supports the proposal for additional support in the Livestock Breeding and Milk sectors. She proposed additional measures to directly support producers in the fruits and vegetables sector. The Minister highlighted that in the wine sector the ministry also has intentions and readiness to provide funds to grape growers and will insist on the proposal to program a similar Covid-19 measure for this program.