As per an agreement between Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and the National Association of Milk Producers and the National Milk Board leaders Plamen Penchev and Dimiter Zorov, dairy producers would receive a subsidy of 0.2 leva per litre of cow and goat’s milk and 0.25 leva per litre of sheep and buffalo’s milk.

The Cabinet will allocate from the public budget up to 70 million leva in extra financing, Bulgarian news agency BTA said.

Under EU agreements authorities in Bulgaria would need permission from the European Commission (EC) to grant subsidies above the current limit of 10.8 million leva.

Focus news agency quoted Zorov as saying that in the beginning of February 2008 Bulgaria would send a request to the EC for permission to increase the state subsidies for agriculture.

Most of the dairy producers were satisfied with the money that they would receive under EU regulation 15/35. The money was enough for small farms with up to 42 cows as they would receive 15 000 leva per farm. The bigger farms however would not benefit from the regulation.

According to Zorov, bigger farms would be funded under a different regulation, which would need nearly 10 million leva and affect 27 000 cows.

The 45 million leva of state subsidies, allocated by the state agricultural fund would be used up by the end of March 2008, Zorov said.

“We had preliminary talks with the EC to increase the support for milk production, Zorov said. If Agriculture and Food Minister Nihat Kabil had asked more funding from the EC in August 2007, the money would have been included in budget 2008 and there world not be any protest of the dairy producers, he said.

The protests would stop for two weeks, mediapool.bg said. Dairy producers demanded that the subsidy limit of 150 000 leva per farmer for funding by the state agricultural fund be lifted.