Food prices are rising unreasonably in the European Union and especially in the Balkans, despite a wave of supermarket boycotts, so the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture has decided to establish a chain of retail stores called “Shops for the People”, which will have a maximum margin of 10 percent and sell mostly Bulgarian products.
The Bulgarian government has provided around five million euros in start-up capital for around 1,500 “Shops for the People”, which will be opened mainly in the poorest and agricultural areas.
There, explained Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture Georgi Tahov, inflation is hitting the population hardest, as they have less and less money to spend on food.
The goal is also to deliver primarily domestic food and agricultural products to consumers as directly as possible, without large intermediaries.
The media in the EU and the Balkans have reported the assessments of consumer and producer associations that the rise in food prices is significantly reducing the salaries and incomes of citizens, not only in the Western Balkans, but also in Bulgaria, Greece and Croatia.
The general conclusion of the consumer and producer associations in the EU is that food prices are rising, farmers are getting less and less money for their products, and profits are increasingly going into the coffers of large processors and supermarket chains.
And within the European Union itself, for example, citizens of Belgium – where food prices have risen sharply in the last few years – in border areas purchase almost all their necessities and food in France and Germany.
Everyone in the Balkans knows very well that many products in neighboring countries are cheaper, and food and much more are noticeably more affordable not only for citizens of Serbia, but also Slovenia and especially Croatia in Trieste and the surrounding area, where supermarkets are filled with Slovenian and Croatian customers every day.
The French government recently summoned the directors of several of the largest food store chains in France and Germany and demanded an explanation for the serious findings that they had agreed on a price cartel for food products, which is strictly prohibited by law, at a secret meeting in a city in Germany.
Representatives of German farmers and some members of the European Parliament have just published on the “Project Syndicate” portal that just four large retail chains in Germany control 85 percent of the food market.
“There is a very high concentration,” as it was stated, in the agricultural processing sector as well.
The German Monopolies Commission warned late last year that “high market concentration seriously affects both food producers and consumers.”
The Serbian government also announced last fall that it was preparing serious fines for several food chains due to serious suspicions that they had agreed to raise food prices and maintain unjustifiably high margins.
But since then, there has been no news about whether the competent ministry and inspectorates have taken any action, even though citizens themselves have boycotted large supermarket chains on several occasions.
Representatives of EU agricultural associations and members of the European Parliament have made it clear in a statement that “if Europe wants to feed itself in the future, it must make agriculture economically and environmentally sustainable…not through subsidies, but by establishing fair market conditions and firmly sustainable standards”.
They point out that one of the steps should be what the German government has taken, which is to make food procurement and sales contracts tripartite, directly between farmers, processors and retail chains, “so that it is known exactly what the market and consumer-justified margins are”.
