Bulgarian minister: “Joining the EU killed the country’s agricultural sector”
Bulgarian Defense Minister Krasimir Karakachanov is convinced that agriculture was brought to the brink of disaster by the “utopia of a market economy” and the lack of planning characteristic of the times of CMEA and the Warsaw Pact.
The head of the department told the Bulgarian publication Trud about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Karakchanov, agriculture, one of the budget-forming industries in Bulgaria, suffered the most during the COVID crisis. However, the state did not provide assistance to this sector. According to the head of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense, the country's existing economic problems were caused by the process of its transition to Western democracy, which began 30 years ago.
“In Bulgaria, unfortunately, the utopia of a free market economy and lack of planning have become catastrophic,” says Karakachanov. - It can’t go on like this! In the nineties of the last century, about 35% of the country’s population lived in the village, now only half of this number remains, mostly elderly people, because the youth have left. This is the effect of the ultra-liberal, absolutely meaningless agricultural model in Bulgaria.”
The Bulgarian minister is confident that the state is unfair towards peasants, and has a completely different attitude towards those who own large plots of land and receive funds from Europe. For this reason, many farmers are forced to leave the village, rent out land or engage in agriculture in other countries, although agriculture is the key to the economy and economic development of Bulgaria. Karakchanov called on official Sofia to stop turning a blind eye to problems in agriculture and proposed to further subsidize this sector.
“It is worrying that Bulgaria imports 80 percent of its fruits and vegetables, even though it was Bulgaria that fed Central Europe before 1944 and Eastern Europe after 1944. Due to the lack of a clear strategy in the last 30 years, the introduction of ultra-liberal regulations and an incorrectly implemented European funding model, not only vegetable growing, but also the entire processing industry was destroyed,” added the Bulgarian minister.
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