Bulgarian farmers will receive European aid because of the war in Ukraine. This was decided unanimously by the Committee on Agriculture in the National Assembly at an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday. The bill to amend the Law on Assistance to Agricultural Producers was introduced by Plamen Abrovski from the parliamentary group of "There Is Such a People" on Tuesday.

The changes are related to the implementation of the special measure for extraordinary temporary support from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development in response to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.

Committee chairman Plamen Abrovski said that due to the importance of the proposed changes and the urgent nature and instability of the current political situation, he intends to propose that the two votes on the bill be held simultaneously in the plenary hall.

On the basis of the adopted changes, an ordinance will be prepared for the implementation of the emergency measure, in order to be able to legally provide the financial support within the framework of the nearly 33 million euros pledged.

In the reasons for the adopted bill, it is stated that the support is in the form of a lump sum, which is paid by October 15, 2023, based on applications for support, which must be approved by March 31, 2023. The maximum amount of aid cannot exceed EUR 15,000 per farmer and EUR 100,000 for small and medium-sized enterprises.

For this measure, Member States are given the opportunity to use available funds under their existing rural development programs of up to 5 percent of the total contribution of the European Agricultural Fund for 2021-2022 to support farmers and SMEs particularly affected by the crisis.

Meanwhile, it became clear that earlier today Zornitsa Stratieva and Zarko Marinov from "Democratic Bulgaria" submitted a bill with proposals for changes to Plamen Abrovski's document, which refer to the promotion of the unification of producers in groups and associations. The Chairman promised to include his vote in the afternoon meeting.

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