The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, sent a letter on Monday to the European commissioner for the sector, Janusz Wojciechowski, to which La Vanguardia has had access, to ask him to activate the crisis reserve of the Common Agrarian Policy in Spain ( PAC) and thus increase economic aid for farmers and ranchers affected by the drought situation in the Iberian Peninsula. This special fund is endowed with 450 million a year, it has to be activated by the European Commission with the support of the states and is designed to be used to deal with current problems in all the countries of the European Union.
The letter signed by Planas begins like this: “I am writing to tell you about the difficult situation facing Spanish agriculture, as well as that of other member states, as a result of the drought.” The minister recalled that last year there was already a 26% reduction in rainfall in Spain compared to average values ​​and that this hydrological year “is even more serious”. From October 2022 to March of this year, the rains are 3% lower than those registered in the same period last year, “which was already a year of extreme drought,” the letter emphasizes. And “there are still the driest months to come, so the situation is going to worsen significantly.”
Planas points out that this situation “is very negatively affecting the agricultural sector and its profitability, particularly in the regions of the southern half and the east of our country, and will surely lead to a decrease in production and an increase in costs.”
To try to cope with an extreme exercise, Spain demands in writing to activate the CAP crisis reserve, a budget designed for extraordinary situations. Luis Planas himself declared yesterday that “the exceptionality is evident”.
“In the last year, Spain has made a significant effort to support farmers and ranchers with national funds, whose production costs have reached records, as you well know,” the letter read. “But the situation derived from this drought is of such magnitude that we cannot address its consequences solely with national funds,” Planas assumes in his communication with the commissioner.
Planas claims Wojciechowski that “the crisis reserve must be mobilized to help our farmers, as it has been recently, and Spain has supported it, for producers in the member states bordering Ukraine.” In effect, the European Commission has already mobilized extraordinary funds for Poland, Hungary and Slovakia due to the problems with grain from Ukraine. “We are concerned about the announcements made by the Commission about a forthcoming package of funds from this reserve intended only for some member states,” added the minister. And he concludes with “it would be impossible for our farmers to understand”.
Planas also demands from the commissioner that the autonomous communities can use the European funds for rural development (EAFRD) with greater flexibility. “It is necessary to extend both its scope of application to farmers, ranchers and SMEs in the sectors most affected by the drought, as well as its eligibility period until the end of the application of the rural development programs 2014-2022, that is, until on December 31, 2025”. The minister also asks to include extra flat-rate aid in the PAC 2023-2027 to support the Spanish countryside.
