Deputy Agriculture Minister Ivan Hristanov has been assigned personal security detail after he received life threats following a row over the expulsion of a company that for ten years had a contract for lab tests at a busy checkpoint on the Bulgarian-Turkish border. That transpired Tuesday when Prime Minister Kiril Petkov met with farmers in Sadovo, southern Bulgaria, where crops were severely damaged or destroyed by a hailstorm in late May. "This week we are assigning security detail to the Deputy Agriculture Minister in connection with his work on the border lab case," Petkov told the farmers.
In late May, the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency decided to put a state-owned lab in charge of controlling the fruit and vegetables imported into Bulgaria from Turkey, thus ending the border business of Evrolab 2011, which had been testing Turkish produce for pesticides for over a decade. The decision followed inspections which established that for the past ten years the company did not have a single video recording of a truck inspection, which it was required to make for each phytosanitary check. Evrolab 2011 said that they were victims of a political attack and that Prime Minister Petkov was trying to take away their business.
All trucks coming from Turkey into Bulgaria are required to go through phytosanitary inspection, including tests for residual pesticides. The trucks are charged for the unloading and loading of the produce, for handling and, of course, for the laboratory tests.
MP Konstantin Bachiiski (There Is Such a People) told Nova TV that the operation generated an income of BGN 5,000 per hour.
In late May, Histanov said that he had received threats.
Attempts by Evrolab 2011 to stop the takeover of its border checkpoint business failed in court: on Tuesday both the Sofia Administrative Court and the Haskovo Administrative Court rejected the company's applications against the decision of the Food Safety Agency.
As he spoke to the farmers in Sadovo, the Prime Minister said that for the first time a Bulgarian government "had the courage to stand up to a mafia grouping that had captured the border". He said of his visit to the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint in April that when he went there, he could not believe his eyes, as it seemed no man had never set foot in some parts of the premises and there were no traces of activity in the animal control lab. "Those were sham labs," Petkov said.
The Prime Minister said that looking into the matter carried a risk "because it meant stopping the money flow that went to people who had received millions [of leva] throughout the years".
Petkov also said that "a serious smear campaign is underway against the government". "There are people who are well aware that they will be going to prison if this government stays and they are doing their best to make sure that does not happen. There are also external forces that want to see this government fall because they don’t like it when we take firm stances and don’t allow them to twist our arms over natural gas." He added that sooner or later, this smear campaign against the government will end.
/MY/
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