Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
In Bulgaria, any private problem can easily escalate, as distrust in institutions is like a “Molotov” cocktail - someone just needs to light the fuse. It's not difficult to do it through social networks, politicians and influencers, calling for no one to be trusted, because the state has been taken over by the mafia, which rigs elections, steals and corrupts the elites, and the citizens are left to their own devices. That's why they don't believe it.
People are not convinced that animals should be euthanized
Even the twice confirmed positive samples do not convince farmers in Velingrad region that their animals are infected with plague and should be euthanized. If they are not destroyed, the export of primary and processed sheep and goat products to the EU will be affected, warned the acting Minister of Agriculture Georgi Tahov after a meeting of the Central Epizootic Council. The Ministry of Agriculture is ready to send samples to Montpellier, where the EU's national mother laboratory is located, but the farmers whose animals will be slaughtered want the results from a Greek laboratory.
“The two-week incubation period for sheep plague disease is over and the animals are healthy, alive and giving birth to little lambs every day, as it is now their term period”, is written in an email to Deutsche Welle asking for help. The virus kills between 80 to 100% of infected animals.
According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture Deyan Stratev, the private Greek laboratory is not authorized to diagnose diseases such as plague of small ruminants and only holds a quality management certificate from a given company. ”We are interested in whether the relevant laboratory has the so-called ISO standard 17/025, which is for testing and calibrating the laboratory and proves that the results are 100% valid”, Stratev said on BNR. The version of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Safety and the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) is that the plague was imported through unregulated import of sick animals.
In Greece, the outbreaks of plague of small ruminants (PPR) were in the regions of Trikala, Larissa and parts of Thessaly and by mid-October the spread was controlled. However, over 14,000 sheep and goats were slaughtered (Greece raises the largest number of goats in the EU, b.a.), and farmers received 150 euros per animal, as is provided for in Bulgaria. In Romania, where this year there was also plague of small ruminants, over 200,000 sheep were euthanized, 2% of all in the country.
High tension
Nearly 1,760 sheep will be destroyed in the Velingrad region, and measures have been taken to limit the spread, including establishing a 3-kilometer protection zone around the outbreak of infection. Farmers will receive compensation of over 700,000 leva - but the quarantine is still ongoing and not a single animal has been euthanized because of the protests. People who protect the farms with a live chain are gathering and the tension is high. In addition, various versions are circulating as to why the farms were "hit" - from battles for pastures and competition to revenge by owners of solar power plants. The BFSA explains that initially the animals were treated by private veterinarians, but the situation worsened and they turned to the state veterinarians at the Food Agency.
As with the political crisis, where politicians permanently lose trust, here too no one trusts the BFSA experts. This is the same BFSA and the same Ministry of Agriculture, which "delegated" their duties to a private company tied to figures from the Bulgarian underground at the entrance to the EU - the "Kapitan Andreevo" border checkpoint. This is the same BFSA, which gave millions to a company to burn animal waste in small-capacity mobile incinerators, revealed in an investigation by journalist Genka Shikerova in 2019. Again, this BFSA does not dare to babble about the quality of Bulgarian food - for example, about the water in the cheese. How can one trust it!
The Bulgarian government - executive, parliamentary, judicial, has a huge problem, because citizens are losing faith in politicians and their efficiency, in institutions and their competence and integrity. The consequences are that trust in democratic practices such as elections is greatly reduced, but more and more people refuse to comply with laws and rules - "if those above violate them, then we can too". And in places, citizens are starting to self-organize, which disrupts social order and security. The danger of reaching institutional paralysis is a threat not only to governance, but also to the implementation of any reforms.
A plague for some, a rating for others
If a protest breaks out, there will be politicians who will ride it. Before leaving for Brussels, where he organized a march under the slogan “Let's tell Europe about the Bulgarian mafia”, Ivelin Mihaylov from the “Majesty” party and his associates did not miss the discontent of the farmers in Velingrad region. There, comments were heard: “The plague is in parliament!”.
“Majesty” is warming up at the entrance to the 51st National Assembly, waiting for the Constitutional Court to find and “return” the missing thirty votes to become the ninth political force, if the parliament has not dissolved by then - and thus redistribute the current mandates.
In the same way in 2018 the then leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Kornelia Ninova took advantage of the slaughter of herds of animals in Strandzha, again because of plague in small ruminants. She conducted an entire campaign, claiming that there was no plague, demanding that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and ministers from the GERB cabinet bear responsibility. By the way, two years later, farmer Ani Petrova from Bolyarovo, who did not allow her herd to be slaughtered, proved her right.
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) canceled the order for destruction and ruled that the infection had not been proven. Then, as in the case of Velingrad, the regional branch of the Food Safety Agency registered positive samples at Petrova's livestock farm and issued an order to kill the animals. A report before the SAC proved that the herd was alive and healthy, including the two sheep with positive tests for plague.
When no one trusts the authorities
But after the slaughter of over 3,000 sheep in Strandzha, the farms never recovered, and many left the villages where their facilities were located. The Bulgarian Animal Health Agency had announced ten times more animals infected with plague. Neither then nor now do farmers believe that the state, represented by its institutions, is doing what is necessary. What happens in a democratic country when more and more citizens begin to believe that the government is not working for the people? They begin to believe that they can get by with less democracy, and the social contract, in which they agree to abide by the laws and cooperate with the institutions in exchange for protecting their rights, is destroyed. Then there is no need for a “Molotov” - a match does the same job.