Prime minister fails to meet protesting farmers

Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) has said that he wanted to meet farmers before the Government's away-from-home session in Medzilaborce on Tuesday, but was unsuccessful. "I tried to meet farmers, and I called them yesterday [July 2] to tell them that I would be in eastern Slovakia. I was willing to go in the morning. ...but their answer was that they had a lot of work and that they didn't have time to meet me ... I understand that they're now flooded with work; it's harvest time and so on. I was ready to meet them today, but we haven't managed it so far," said Pellegrini before the Government meeting. The dissatisfied farmers demand the formation of a specialised investigation team to look into cases where farmers have been wronged, a policy change for the Agricultural Payment Agency so it will pay subsidies only to farmers who either own the land or have a contractual claim for its use and the creation of fair and transparent rules for land distribution.