The government calls on protesting milk farmers to resume negotiations on milk purchase prices and to remove roadblocks, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said at the beginning of his Cabinet's meeting on Thursday.
I urge milk farmers' representatives not to conduct negotiations in an atmosphere of pressure, Milanovic said, adding that there were possibly other discontented people in Croatia, but they were not blocking roads.
We will not allow a blockade of cities and towns. We will make sure that the rule of law is implemented, the PM said.
Disgruntled farmers have been protesting for nine days over the dairy companies' lowering of the purchase price of milk. They put their tractors on roads and streets, impeding traffic at several places.
As for a police intervention in Zagreb on Wednesday night, when police removed protesters and their tractors from a road to ensure resumption of traffic, Milanovic said he believed that the police had performed their task in a civilised manner, "just like police in a civilised country".
The PM said he did not consider the farmers' protests to be against the state. He also said that he did not believe that the protesters were being manipulated, adding that their difficult situation had forced them to take to the streets.
After receiving for several years grants and subsidies that were not well-planed in the long term, milk farmers have found themselves in a difficult situation. We, however, must put an end to that policy and define how much the state can and must subsidise certain economic activities, the PM said.
In this case, the state is only a mediator. The government can help with HRK 0.5 per litre of milk as state aid. Anything above that amount is impossible as the state has no money. It is in the state's interest to make sure that the dairy sector survives, and funds for state aid for agriculture will be provided if the government succeeds in kick-starting investments, the PM said.
