Dozens of Bulgarian farmers blocked a road outside the southern city of Kurdzhali Thursday in protest against the decision of the European Commission to freeze EUR 121 M of SAPARD funds, which was confirmed with the monitoring report on Wednesday.

This is the first protest by Bulgarian farmers against the measure, which might eventually lead to the ultimate loss of the SAPARD Program money.

The farmers blocked the road for about an hour. In their words, the decision of the EC was unjust because it hurt the Bulgarian agricultural producers, many of whom had taken loans, and relied on the SAPARD funds to repay them and to support their farms.

The farmers claim that without the money from the EU the Bulgarian agriculture would collapse because of the market pressure.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Milk Producers urged the Bulgarian government to do everything necessary to unfreeze the funds from the pre-accession program. They believe that despite all issues in the absorption of EU funds, the money from SAPARD had reached a large number of ordinary Bulgarian farmers.

Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Plugchieva announced earlier Thursday morning that a team of experts from the Ministry of Agriculture had left for Brussels to present the action plan for rectifying the problems with the absorption of EU money.

Plugchieva said the government was to ask for a one-year extension of the pre-accession program, which is scheduled to expire in December 2008.

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