Socially disadvantaged and poor Bulgarians would start receiving grants from the European Union (EU) after January 1 2008 in the form of foods, State Fund Agriculture (SFA) executive director Dimitar Tadarukov said, as quoted by Sega daily on October 24.

The support is funded through EU Structural Grants which have become available after Bulgaria joined the EU in January 2007.

Each month, more than 360 000 Bulgarians were to get two kilograms of flour, and a kilogram of both sugar and rice.

This was happening 10 years after the winter of 1997 when the EU extended a grant for impoverished Bulgarians amounting to 20 million ecu (the former single currency of the Union). At that time around 200 000 Bulgarian households received a small donation in money. Now the approach was changed and food products would be distributed among the poor, said Sega.

EU funds would be used to buy the food products via the so-called intervention agency, which exists in each member country, and in Bulgaria is still incorporated within the SFA. The main function of an intervention agency was to buy and offer on the market wheat and other essential food products, in order to influence their prices. Another function was to set aside foods for the poor, Tadarukov said.

The European Commission defined that the poorest Bulgarians would need and would therefore receive throughout the next year, 20 000 tons of wheat, 12 000 tons of rice and 6500 tons of sugar. After this summer’s drought, the agency had no wheat and rice in its warehouses. Therefore it was to receive 1 990 461 euro for buying flour and 1 768 251 for rice. Part of the sugar would be supplied by the Hungarian intervention agency, and Bulgaria was to get 3 125 000 euro for sugar.