BULGARIAN MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE: THE NEW RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AIMS AT BOOSTING THE COMPETITIVENESS OF BULGARIAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

Dessislava Taneva, Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture and Foods, in an interview for Radio FOCUS’s broadcast This is Bulgaria.


Host: The total amount of the budget for the new Rural Development Programme is over EUR 2.9 billion. This became clear after the Bulgarian government voted the updated draft bill for the programme. It is expected the European Commission to endorse its final text until the middle of the year. Application for some of the measures will begin in March, though. We are now to discuss the matter with Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture and Food Desislava Taneva. What does the programme provide and what may Bulgarian farmers and bee keepers rely on until 2020?

Dessislava Taneva: The Council of Ministers adopted the second version of the draft bill for the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, whose budget would be EUR 2.917 billion, some EUR 2.366 billion of which would come from the EU funds. This budget is divided in 18 measures for giving assistance to farmers in Bulgaria and for the development of the rural areas, improvement of the infrastructure and the living standard in such areas. What are the priorities of the programme, what is the focus for assisting the second version, which of course reflects our political views and political programme of the government?

The focus is on raising the competitive power of Bulgarian farmers through more investments, as all measures in this regard provide EUR 1 billion for the entire programme period. The second priority is bio-agriculture. EUR 152 million is provided for the new programme period for this sector, in contrast to the last programme period when the budget of the bio-agriculture was EUR 32 million. The third priority is the priority sectors of the Bulgarian agriculture – fruits, vegetables, and stock breeding, which will receive subsidies and which for first time there will be special measure supporting local and traditional species and selected plants. As an example, for first time cultivation of Bulgarian oil-yielding rose and lavender will be supported. This is just an example. The fourth priority is focused on small farms.

For first time we will implement sub-measure aimed at small farms as we foresee higher than the initially earmarked funding in the first version – EUR 90 million, now it is EUR 110 million. Of course, we managed to improve the budget for young farmers in the second version of the programme. Around 1,630 young farmers will be able to take advantage of the measures from the programme for the new programme period, as compared to the initial version of the programme, which was sent to the European Commission in July last year, we have managed to increase the budget nearly two-fold. You could ask where we took money from to give more to young farmers. We cut off some money from measures for consultant services, transfer of knowhow, and technical assistance, which as you all know has always led to numerous scandals, so we minimised its budget.

These are basically the main focuses of the new programme. I hope that this time around the measures would be adopted in a more efficient way. According to our calculations, around 4,000 farms will be able to take advantage of the different measures of the programme. Furthermore, I can also say that the auxiliary measures from the Agro-environmental Programme will officially start on March 1 this year, along with the campaign for direct payments, which in 2015 will be made according to new schemes for the first time.

The regulations are already subject to public discussions. I would like to tell all branch organisations to not worry, as because of the abridged terms we had, many of the regulations are still in a draft phase. There are omissions in many of them, which in time we will fix. I would like to mention that our team has already managed to eliminate 426 problems from the first version of the programme, which was filed with the European Commission in July 2014. We are working in a constant co-operation with the experts from the European Commission, who are responsible for our programme, and they have praised our progress. I hope that we will manage to really offer a much better Rural Development Programme, which would clearly be focused on supporting the investments in the sector of agriculture, aiming at boosting its competitiveness.

Host: Have the requirements towards beneficiaries changed? Will there be stricter requirements or will the application procedures be facilitated in the new programme?

Dessislava Taneva: The procedures will be explained in the different regulations for application of the different measures. The first measure, which we intend on opening, is Measure 4.1 – Investments in physical assets. The regulations are yet to be discussed with the branch organisations and I really hope that its final version would, naturally, facilitate the procedures for application and alleviate the administrative burden when applying. Some of the requirements regarding the size of the farms have been increased, including the programme for young farmers, with comparison to the first version. These were the requirements and philosophy for assistance – to be directed towards viable farmers, who really do this as a form of business, and not as additional social revenue. Some of the requirements regarding young farmers have been increased, while others have been facilitated. The criteria for young farmers will continue to cover priority sectors for Bulgaria – fruits, vegetables, and stock breeding will be prioritised.

Host: After the end of the first EU programme period, what is the condition of the administrative capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture? And what about State Fund Agriculture? After the first seven years, figuratively speaking, what is going on?

Dessislava Taneva: After the application of the first Rural Development Programme we must take into consideration all negatives, including the discontent of some branch organisations, but we must also recognise that the administrative capacity has improved considerably when compared to the previous programme period. I have always said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, as far as I have had the chance to meet many of the experts over the past three months, has very good experts, who have been working in the sphere for many years and who have vision on what policies should be led. Of course, there is a lot that can be desired.

The biggest negative I can see is that the administration, in general, has still not managed to accept the philosophy that it should be open and helpful to every single citizen, and towards every single sector of the economy, so that their issues could be resolved more quickly. I think that this philosophy should be adopted in order the administration to become really effective. I will give you an example. A few hours ago I had a meeting with agricultural producers from Haskovo and Stara Zagora. They filed documents with the Ministry of Agriculture back in 2006 and 2007 for the acquisition of a certain properties adjacent to buildings they had purchased. The inability to acquire these properties prevents them from making investments. So we have 8 years in which the administration has not managed to solve their problems. This is a clear sign that the administrative capacity must be improved faster and the administration should place people’s interests first.

Host: You said that the application forms for some of the measures would be accepted in March.
Dessislava Taneva: Yes, but only Measure 4.1 will start towards the end of March, as the whole programme must go through public discussions with branch organisations first.

Host: When will all measures be started?

Dessislava Taneva: After its official approval. We plan to open Measure 4.1 before its official approval by the European Commission. After that we will open two more measures – the one for young farmers and one connected to it, which will allow the administration to start accepting applications for the Young Farmers measure. This will happen by the middle of the year. After we receive approval for the complete programme, we will make the respective indicative schedule and plan for opening the next measures.