The turnover of large retail chains during the fourth boycott was almost 4 million leva more. Data from the National Revenue Agency show that on March 5, the day before the action, retailers reported 25.5 million leva, and during the boycott, turnover jumped to 29.3 million leva. Against this background, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food explained that work on the bill to shorten the supply chain continues. What is happening… Velizar Enchev, former ambassador to the Republic of Croatia, speaks to FACT.
- Mr. Enchev, what kind of people are we Bulgarians? Apparently we live well, after shopping as if it were our last, as they say, despite calls to boycott retail chains?
- We do not live well at all. Quite the opposite - according to official statistics, Bulgaria is the poorest country in the European Union, with the standard of living in our country being lower than some countries in the Western Balkans. In recent months, retail chains and other food stores have seen an increase in the prices of essential goods - the double increase in the price of eggs is the most indicative of this process.
This price shock is a real catastrophe for both the 800,000 pensioners who live below the poverty line and the working poor in Bulgaria, who are unable to cover their basic food and household expenses. Even more outrageous is that the prices of butter, milk, cheese, meat and sausages in foreign retail chains are higher in their Bulgarian branches than in their own countries, where the standard of living is incomparable to ours. The same product, in the same retail chain, has a higher price in Bulgaria than in countries in Western Europe, specifically in Austria and Germany...
- Is it a fact that during the first boycott on February 13, the turnover of the chains fell by nearly 30%? Apparently, only then did people's dissatisfaction express itself. What and how did it turn out later?
- That's right. During the first boycott, the turnover of the chains fell, but during the third and fourth, their turnover increased. With one important clarification - the boycott on March 6 brought 4 million more turnover, but on goods with a 50-60% promotion. Which means that the profits of the retail chains have fallen, and consumers have shopped more profitably for them. We accept the data on the trade turnover presented to us by the National Revenue Agency. Facts that the Boycott Initiative Committee is unable to verify or dispute.
But let's not close our eyes to a disturbing phenomenon - the people for whom the boycott is being made boycotted it.
The reaction of Bulgarian consumers to the boycott is unprecedented and cannot be compared at all with the boycotts of hypermarkets in Greece, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. In these countries, the exact opposite happened - During the days of the boycott, citizens boycotted en masse, food chains were empty, and this led to immediate measures by governments to reduce trade markups.
The boycott against the high prices of food goods in foreign retail chains is in the service mostly of pensioners, the socially disadvantaged and the working poor in Bulgaria.
But, unfortunately, it was precisely these social groups that not only ignored the boycott, but did the exact opposite and on the days of the second, third and fourth boycotts occupied the stores because of the promotions.
Instead of boycotting the high prices of foreign chains, treating them as “second category“ Europeans, hundreds of elderly people crowded in front of the entrances of the stores before they opened early in the morning.
It is sad to say, but it must be said - the promotions broke the dignity of the Bulgarians and amputated their social solidarity.
And here is the comparison that saddens me - on February 28, hundreds of thousands of Greeks protested against the lawlessness after a serious train accident two years ago. On that day, the Greeks took over the squares in a fight for JUSTICE, while on February 27, the Bulgarians occupied the stores because of the PROMOTIONS. A people who are easily bought with expensive promotions, sell their future cheaply.
- The chains responded to the boycott with an even greater discount, which brought them more revenue? Is this a game of the mind?
- If we assume that it is a game of the mind, it means that foreign chains know our national psychology and especially the “black holes“ in it, where the civic conscience sinks. This “black hole“ also swallowed the unions, which is evidenced by the fact that after 1989 Bulgaria is the only country in Europe where there has been no general strike.
- Do you expect the state to intervene in this dispute between traders and consumers or will it watch from the sidelines?
- On February 13, we addressed the government with a request, which was already satisfied by the Croatian government after the first Croatian boycott. The Bulgarian government must approve a list of 70 basic food products, the prices of which should be set at a “ceiling”.
For comparison, here is what the Croatian government decided: the highest level of retail prices for sunflower oil is 1.72 euros per liter, fresh milk with 2.8% fat content - 1.03 euros/liter, sugar - 1.33 euros/kg., flour - 0.80 euros/kg., minced pork - 4.11 euros/kg., chicken - 3.32 euros/kg., yogurt - 0.49 euros per bucket, rice - 2.29 euros/kg., 10 eggs - 2.45 euros, boneless pork neck - 5.49 euros/kg., etc.
However, if we compare salaries and pensions in Bulgaria and Croatia, we will find something extremely disturbing - in Bulgaria the prices of these essential goods are higher, and salaries and pensions - lower.
On February 15, just 48 hours after the first boycott of Bulgarian consumers, the Zhelyazkov government held an extraordinary Saturday meeting and promised to take measures to tame food prices.
But because the rulers only fear mass resistance, once it became clear that people were being bought off with cheap promotions, the government forgot the promise to put a ceiling on the prices of basic food goods. The Minister of Agriculture is now only talking about shortening the supply chain in order to reduce intermediaries between producers and end consumers. This is a very good solution, but it is not a guarantee for reducing the high trade mark-ups of food in the chains, some of which are 100 percent.
- You know Croatia and the Croats well, because you were the ambassador of Bulgaria there. What is the difference - both in the national psychology of the two peoples, and in the boycotts - there and in our country?
- The Croats are a Slavic people, professing Catholicism, but with a Prussian mentality. In the 19th century, they admired the Bulgarian people and warmly supported our struggle for national and church liberation - from Turkish slavery and the dictates of the Greek clergy. The symbol of this support is the Catholic Bishop Strossmayer, who in 1861. publishes in Džakovo “Bulgarian Folk Songs“ by the Miladinovi Brothers.
Today the roles are reversed. When in 1992 the Yugoslav army attacked Croatia, men went en masse as volunteers to defend the homeland. At the same time, Bulgarian youth were fleeing military service in peacetime...
Today we must follow the Croatian struggle for social justice. But among the Bulgarians, social solidarity has been amputated, and without it you cannot achieve social justice. We are a painfully disunited people who believe in nothing, who have erased the boundary between good and evil, between shame and honor, have insulted their ancestral values and live in deep internal emigration. That's why the retail chains are making fun of us with these bribing promotions - because they see that we are easy to sell.
- From your words, I understand that Bulgarian consumers are also to blame for the high prices?
- I will say something that does not sound nice. The people, the citizens, are also to blame for our current unhappy fate. Because they endure the hardships of life, do not resist injustice, and in elections they sell their votes or vote convincingly for those who look them in the eye and deceive them.
On December 30 last year, at the protest in front of the KEVR against the unjustified increase in electricity prices by 9 percent, only 50 people came. And there should have been at least 5,000. A people who remain silent and suffer when they should shout against injustice condemn themselves to poverty.
The Bulgarian must realize that they should be citizens, not subjects of retail chains and ERPs.
That the ministers and hypermarkets are his servants, not he theirs. That with slavish patience and cowardly resignation one somehow survives. But this is not a dignified life, but a shameful survival.
- Is the boycott continuing?
- The boycott is not a fight for promotions, but a fight for promotional prices in retail chains to become permanent. The boycott aims to make Bulgarians pay as much for basic food products as Germans and Austrians pay in the same chains. To show that we are a People, not a herd, as the heralds of power have called us, on March 13 the boycott of the chains continues!