The counter-blockade staged by Bulgarian truckers as a response to the protest actions of the Greek farmers was lifted on Sunday, after an appeal of Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski. The carriers claim they have unclogged the checkpoints for their colleagues in distress on the other side of the border, but also for tactical reasons. The blockade was lifted in expectation of negotiations between the Greek farmers and PM Alexis Tsipras for the overcoming of the crisis.

Bulgaria went through similar situations in 2010 and 2011, again in January and February. The farmers in Greece love protesting in months when there are no intense agriculture activities and the strong tourist season has not started. At the same time the winter tourist season in Bulgaria is at its peak.

However, it looks like their protests this year have caused more serious damages, both economic and political. PM Boyko Borissov voiced to the public his disappointment with the ineffective talks on the phone with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras and said that the Bulgarian government would tighten its approach to the problem, as Greece definitely showed certain attitude towards this country. Mr. Borissov had his reasons to be disappointed, as he had already declined the proposal of the Visegrad Group to build up a fence along the Greek border. At the same time the free movement principle was violated by those farmers’ protests, against any international law. The transport minister even lost his temper, stating that the Greek state had abdicated the problem, letting 50 drunk farmers stop thousands of trucks on the other side of the border and those were enjoying the situation.

The parliament adopted unanimously a declaration, calling on the EC to give attention to the situation at once, including an eventual infringement procedure against Greece. The MPs expressed their expectation that the Greek side wouldn’t let the crisis result in the worsening of bilateral relations. However, the negative consequences were already available, which was inevitable after a month of blockades.

After the lifting of the Bulgarian counter-blockade Minister Moskovski apologized for his sharp words due to “lost temper”, but said he stood behind every word he said, as he had spoken the truth only. Affected, he had uttered that there was no government on the other side of the border, by the way…

MP Krassimir Karakachanov, one of those who submitted the parliamentary declaration, commented that those were all home policy problems of Greece, affecting negatively, however, hundreds of thousands of Bulgarians.

Losses are still being calculated after nearly a month of blockade, but forecast data points at dozens of millions of euros, distributed over 7 – 8,000 trucks. Nearly half of those are Austrian, Hungarian, Czech and Polish vehicles. Over 200 small enterprises, mainly in the region of Southwest Bulgaria haven’t been able to function in the course of almost a whole month due to the lack of materials. Thousands of foreigners cannot reach this country’s winter resorts and a large-scale cancellation of Bulgarian bookings for Greek resorts has been registered too. Tour operators claim that more than 60% of the March 3 – 6 bookings have been cancelled, along with some reservations for Easter. Some Bulgarians have even decided to boycott Greek tourism, no matter the blockade.

After the Bulgarian counter-blockade was lifted, the TIR trucks queues were shortened to a length of some 15 km on Monday morning. Rumors have it, however that the Greek farmers’ negotiations with their government wouldn’t mark any progress and the border would be blocked again.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev