Bulgarian stock breeders have threatened to start protests over the inaction of the government of the socialist-led government of Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski.

Boyko Sinapov, Chair of the National Association of Stock Breeders, told the Focus news agency Tuesday that the regional structures of the Association would meet Wednesday to decide when and where the protests would take place.

"The people are firmly convinced that we need to stage protests. The fact that no team has yet been formed at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food makes us think that the government's first goal has been to appoint party members at the right places and only then think about working people," Sinapov stated.

He noted that Bulgarian stock breeders were only seeking to defend their interests and had no party affiliation, despite accusations to the contrary.

"Colleagues from all over the country are worried by the current situation. We do not know what is happening to our sector. They have been trying to introduce order into the affairs for a month and a half. Bulgarian stock breeders are worried about the things which were supposed to happen, about the payments due in end-September and October. We need to know what is happening to us, whether anything had been accomplished, whether a report has been submitted in Brussels, how much money has been earmarked for our sector and if they have been secured or not," Sinapov declared, as cited by dnevnik.bg.

The Chair of the National Association of Stock Breeders insisted that the Ministry of Agriculture and Food had been exclusively devoted to reshuffling its staff for the past month.

He argued that stock breeders were in the dark about subsidy payments in 2013 and the efforts to boost EU funds absorption under the Rural Development Program so as to prevent losses of millions by the end of the year were highly insufficient.

He also drew attention to the fact that the preparations for the 2014-2020 programming period and the measures aimed at supporting the stockbreeding industry were also unclear.

Sinapov emphasized that the National Association of Stock Breeders would withdraw confidence from the government unless it managed to accelerate its pace of work.

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