Tobacco growers to stage funding protests in Bulgaria next week

Bulgarian tobacco producers are planning to stage large-scale demonstrations in the week beginning July 8 to protest at the country’s failure to secure EU funding for the industry during the next multiyear budgetary period.

The chairman of Bulgaria’s association of tobacco producers, Tsvetan Filev, said Bulgaria was the only country that had failed to protect the interests of the people employed in the tobacco sector—some 200,000 in Bulgaria.

The industry, he said, would not benefit from EU subsidies under the Common Agricultural Program 2014-2020, and tobacco was not the only sector in this position, he added.

The protests are to be held outside the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in the capital city Sofia, and at other places in the country.

The story indicated that Filev “did not rule out the possibility” that on July 11, representatives of the industry would blockade Bulgaria’s border checkpoints with Turkey and Greece.