Appeal to MPs: Parliamentarians, don't sell yourselves out, help the farmers

Farmer from Cazin, Senad Orašanin, sent an open letter to the MPs ahead of the House of Representatives PSBiH session to be held tomorrow, reports Patria.

I am writing again regarding the session scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday), which will include amendments to the Excise Law. I am hereby addressing all representatives in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament again.

Dear representatives, at the previous session, you showed courage, determination, and awareness of the extremely difficult situation in agriculture throughout BiH, and you voted against it. I remind you again that the federal authorities have significantly reduced agricultural subsidies for us over the last three years, payments are more than half a year late, and some have not yet received subsidies from 2014. We are getting crumbs while various tycoons regularly receive millions.

BiH authorities have left us without EU funds for several years, without protection from far more developed competition from imports, and now they want to increase fuel excise taxes for highways, which we with our tractors do not use at all. The introduction of blue diesel has been promised to us since 2010 and has not yet been implemented, while our competitors from neighboring countries and EU countries have had blue diesel for many years. Believe me, most of us would gladly leave the country and go in search of a better life, but even that is not possible for us because we have no one to sell our property to, and loan installments will catch up with us wherever we go.

Our last hope for salvation are you, the representatives who did not support unrealistic decisions at the previous session and stopped the immediate increase in fuel excise taxes.

I ask you to remain decisive and courageous at this session as well and vote against the increase in excise taxes.

Please help us, do not betray us and sell yourselves out to those who receive millions in subsidies every year at the expense of us small and medium-sized farmers, who are the most numerous and who are responsible for the sustainability of agriculture and deserve to be its pillars in BiH - the letter states.