Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naydenov has proposed the creation of a mechanism to monitor food prices and intervene if there are departures from the norm.

The proposal comes after several operations and checks on food prices on the market around the Christmas and New Year's Eve in 2010.

"I will propose measures, which would allow us to monitor the movement of food prices and the contractual agreements throughout the whole supply chain producer-processor-trader," Naydenov said Tuesday.

In his words, the state "needs to have mechanisms for monitoring and intervention, if needed, if the prices start to departure from the norms".

"It is clear that the price hike is a world tendency. It is clear that many factors, such as the price of oil, energy and raw material, also affect food prices. This is not happening only in Bulgaria. However, someone may decide to take advantage of the disorder and speculate with the price hike," Naydenov said.

The minister said it was possible that the prime minister have tools for monitoring and imposing sanctions when necessary.

Nyadenov has explained the new idea with the results of a recent survey by Alpha Research, which showed that 80% of the Bulgarians think that the increase of food prices is the worst thing that has happened to them.

The poll also showed that people expect that the government would react to the price hikes in some way.

Meanwhile, Naydenov also announced that he has approached the Prosecutor's Office for the former CEO of the Bulgarian Agriculture Fund, Kalina Ilieva, who was dismissed from her post after it became clear that she tried to conceal her pregnancy from the superiors.

"She has submitted numerous signals [against projects under the EU SAPARD program] and now we have submitted a signal against her. We will show her in a different light," the agriculture minister said.

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