Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Bolea, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, said the authorities are permanently in contact with farmers through the agency of the 30 professional associations. Each activity in agriculture is very different. Respectively, the problems are also different and generalized solutions for everyone cannot be applied therefore, IPN reports.
“We now speak about a group of farmers who are extremely important for the Republic of Moldova and who are in a crisis situation. We speak about grain producers that are also very different, from the northern, southern and central districts of the country, and their results are as different,” the minister stated in the program “Shadow Cabinet” on JurnalTV channel.
According to him, the farmers ask for a dialog, but a dialog means discussions to reach a consensus, not demands to do something and threats with protests. In 2022, the farmers were allocated 1 billion lei. The budget for agriculture this year is 1.9 billion lei. All the money was transferred to farmers’ accounts. “This means attitude and respect for farmers and for their importance. The famers reached an impasse and experience a lot of problems. This is true and no one denies this. But everything should be shared out depending on the real problems and taking into account those who are really in a difficulty and risk going bankrupt,” stated Vladimir Bolea.
As to the farmers’ request to ban the calculation of penalties for the late payment of installments on loans, the official said the Government cannot tell the banks how to act. All the measures intended for famers should be targeted exactly as a farmer encounters difficulties as a result of a drought, while another farmer has the storehouses full and the problem is related to the price.
In the same program, the executive director of the association “Force of Farmers” Alexandru Slusari, when being asked about the aggressive behavior of farmers who attempted to overthrow a police car, said the organizers of the protest proposed against creating a green corridor that the tractors could use to travel to the central square of Chisinau. In the preliminary statement, they asked for police assistance during the trip through Chisinau, but the police refused to help and they had to reach the central square on their own.
“In protest that they cannot reach the destination, they started to move in a European style, with a speed of 20km/h to and fro for about an hour. Afterward, two police officers stopped their car next to a tractor and in a brutal way pulled the driver out, trying to take away his license. This thing aroused dissatisfaction among the farmers, who surrounded the police car and tried to do what you said,” stated Alexandru Slusari.
Calling in, the head of the General Police Inspectorate Viorel Cernăuțeanu said it is regrettable that the organizers do not obey the own preliminary statement and the acts of hooliganism of some of the protesters are also regrettable. The protesters behaved aggressively towards the police and showed lack of common sentence when they tried to take away the police reports from the police car.
Farmers from a number of districts, who are now in the central square of the capital city, on Wednesday set off for Chisinau and in the afternoon continued their trip to the central square. On the way, they caused traffic jams. The police urged them to unblock the streets so that the public and private transport could pass. At a certain moment, a group of farmers started to behave aggressively and caused altercations. The farmers tried to destroy a police car and insulted police officers.
