Alberto Núñez Feijóo always remembers that he was born “in the rural area”. For this reason, after visiting a livestock farm in Lalín (Pontevedra) he charged the Spanish Government for “inaction” and “contempt” towards farmers and the primary sector. The president of the PP stood up as a defender of the struggle of Spanish farmers and demanded that the conditions that Spanish farmers must meet are the same as those from third countries whose products are imported by the states of the European union.
The president of the PP called on the central government to compensate those affected by the losses caused by the trucks that overturned the French farmers, and to ask the former French minister Ségolène Royal, who said that the Spanish tomatoes were inedible, to rectify and apologize
The president of the PP denounced “the neglect of the central Government” with the countryside and with the problems of farmers and ranchers, which has been reflected, he said, in its refusal to lower the VAT on meat, fish and preserves, in addition to “permanent haggling” and an “absence of investments in irrigation”.
For this reason, the PP demands a shock plan and has approved a document of its own in favor of farmers and ranchers, together with the councilors of agriculture of the autonomous communities governed by the PP. According to Feijóo, this document will be taken to the debates of the European People’s Party congress to be held in Bucharest in March.
The plan includes fifteen measures ranging from the suspension of the plastic tax, the commitment not to impose new fees and the payment of compensation to those affected by the attacks in France.
According to Núñez Feijóo, the Spanish Government “has little time to deal with the problems of farmers” because a “multiparty” Government, like the central Government, “does not have time for the problems of the people”. Feijóo pointed out that the Executive must devote all its efforts to fixing “its internal problems”.
In his opinion, this is what will happen in Galicia if the PP does not obtain an absolute majority, because it is the only party that guarantees “a solid and free government, which takes care of the real problems of the citizens”.
In its shock plan for the primary sector, the PP undertakes to “accredit that agriculture and livestock are strategic sectors” and the countryside “is key in environmental policy”. The popular leader warned that the policies aimed at this sector “cannot be designed looking through a window of La Castellana and without knowing the rural environment”, which is what in his opinion the Executive is doing. “We have an urban government that does not know the agricultural sector”.
The PP is in favor, as requested by some groups of Spanish and European farmers and ranchers, of “making the CAP more flexible and reducing the bureaucracy that the sector suffers from”. Feijóo called for looser regulation, more sensitivity and “direct contact” like the protagonists of the primary sector. The intention, according to the leader of the PP, would be to agree on criteria that are imposed unilaterally by the Government of Spain, such as the review of the eco-regimes – environmental conditions – and the postponement of the digital notebook until the deadline set for the rest of EU countries.
The PP also demands that a “national water pact” and a “fiscal policy to reduce taxes in the agricultural sector” be approved.
