After the unsuccessful spring protest of the winegrowers both in front of the Council of Ministers and the Presidency, now comes the autumn of their discontent. It is intensified by the bad weather conditions. 

"Grapes are scarce this year and we had to harvest them quickly to preserve them and ensure we have high quality beverages, despite the small quantities," say farmers in the sector. The winegrowers were the least active participants in the big national farmers' protest held on 18 September, but they say the problems in the sector are not of yesterday. The neglect they have been subjected to dates back to the years before Bulgaria's accession to the EU, and what saddens them most is that the country now receives the lowest subsidies for growing vines compared to all other European countries.  "We, Bulgarian grape and wine producers, are not treated as working in an EU member state and are not on an equal footing with other producers in Europe," the Bulgarian Vine and Wine Chamber said.

Moreover, there is no objective and transparent criterion for the distribution of aid to the wine sector. "We are also deprived of participation in European programmes for investment in new techniques and technologies" - Marin Kalnev, member of the National Association of Bulgarian Vine Growers, tells BNR:

"For many years the sector suffered from the lack of an adequate development plan and strategy," he explains in an interview with BNR-Plovdiv. - "Every year in our country more than 13 thousand acres of vineyards are destroyed, that's more than 86 thousand acres of vineyards created and then wiped out in the last 10 years alone. In my farm, I take the utmost care of the vines, I use pesticides, fertilizers, equipment purchased from European countries, and yet our production is uncompetitive on the market, because in Bulgaria there are imports of grapes and wine products from Romania, Serbia, Macedonia, Moldova - mostly third countries, which, however, no one controls. That is why we want the state to give priority to buying wine produced in Bulgaria. It is now the practice to produce Bulgarian wine, but from grapes imported from abroad." 

Marin Kalnev himself is also considering uprooting his vineyards, which are 37 acres and which he has been growing for 8 years near Plovdiv. His question is - how is it that the imported grapes are at a lower price than the local ones, given that they use the same equipment and chemicals? "This means that in these countries there is hidden support for the winegrowers," he believes. 

The same concerns are shared by Yordan Chorbadzhiyski, chairman of the National Vine and Wine Chamber. "Grape growers in Bulgaria are doomed to bankruptcy. At the moment, they grow grapes only because they can afford it, not for the profit," he said in an interview with Radio Bulgaria: 

"I want to make a comparison with France - this year the winemakers in France could not sell their wine and the state intervened by allocating €200 million to them, which automatically reduced the price of the final product. We can't compete with their price because the selling price of a kilo of grapes in Bulgaria is about 70 euro cents and it takes three kilos of grapes to make one litre of wine. Add to that the cost of the bottle, the labelling, the crate, the logistics, etc., and the price rises. The human factor is also very important for us, because our seasonal workers are currently working outside the country. I also have another question for the state - how is it that France hires our workers, paying them higher wages, but their wine is cheaper than Bulgarian wine? The answer to this question lies in their subsidies and the lack of subsidies for Bulgarian producers, both for wine and for table grapes."

Photos: BTA, BGNES