Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov has allowed truck drivers, who are striking against rising fuel prices, to park their freight vehicles on Tsarigradsko Chausse boulevard beyond the city's ring road on May 19-22, the city hall's press service said in a statement.
The truck drivers are also protesting against the bad condition of the road infrastructure. They started their protests on May 19 in Sofia and in 37 other Bulgarian cities and towns.
Sofia Police directorate will provide security guards and control posts, as well as will regulate the traffic during the strike, the statement read.
The Finance Ministry has rejected demands to decrease excise duties on diesel fuel for freight companies, nor would it agree to reimburse such expenses incurred by the companies, as suggested by the trade unions, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported on May 18, after truckers met with Transport Minister Petar Moutafchiev and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski.
According to Oresharski, a working group is studying the European practice in this regard but "we don't know somewhere or other, where the transport companies do not pay excise duties", he said. The problem was rooted in the global petrol price increase.
Oresharski said the excise duty in Bulgaria is currently lower than in the rest of the European Union member states and is slightly above the EU minimum excise duty rate. In Bulgaria, the freighters must pay 306 euro duty on 1000 liters of fuel and by 2015 this amount should reach 359 euro.
Lukoil Bulgaria, which owns the country's biggest oil refinery, said in a statement that the quick transition to the excise duty levels that exist in the EU would lead to a shocking price increase. The only freighters that have not joined the strike against the price increase are the companies from the Confederation of the Automobile Transport Unions, its co-chairperson Koycho Roussev said.
According to the deputy chairperson of the Union of the Automobile Transport Alliances, Krassimir Lalov, the prices of diesel fuel in Bulgaria were higher than in Slovenia, Luxembourg, Spain and Belgium, all much richer EU countries. Many drivers were loading their lorries there to come to Bulgaria and to go back to those countries. Lalov said the minimum rate for EU has already been reached and if the government does not take measures, many transport companies would go bankrupt.
In responce to this, Oresharski said that even if the state decided to repay the excise duty to the freighting firms and introduced additional measures to keep prices law, it would have only a temporary impact, as the petrol price will keep on growing.
On May 20, the Transport Ministry will meet fuel producers to discuss measures to decrease fuel prices, including possible legislative options. But according to the chairperson of the Bulgarian Petrol and Gas Association Andrey Delchev, a price decrease cannot be discussed.
