The parliamentary group of Junts per Catalunya will demand that the Government of the Generalitat prepare and approve a law to “debureaucratize” the countryside, as the sector has been demanding for some time. It will do so within the framework of the monographic plenary session on the countryside, on farmers and ranchers, which is being held this week in Parliament.
“There has to be trust in the sector, less inspection and sanctions and more support,” summarize JxCat sources, who believe that it should be clear that administrative silence is a positive response so that activity does not stop. “We want the legislation to be a guarantee for the sector, not for the administration,” point out these sources, who recall that the Government promised to enable a single window last year that is not yet operational.
In the event that the Catalan Executive ignores this demand, included in the resolution proposals of the post-convergent group, it will be the formation that promotes regulations as it did with the drought last year, according to JxCat sources, who believe It is up to the Government of Pere Aragonès to take the initiative.
However, the Government assures that the commitment to the single window is firm. In fact, one of the points that the Esquerra parliamentary group will focus on is the need to streamline and simplify bureaucratic procedures.
Likewise, Republicans propose measures to establish “fair prices” for the primary sector, in two lines: by modifying the state food chain law. “It is about the peasantry not losing money even if consumers pay high prices,” they say from ERC. In addition, the training believes that the creation of a public food distributor is necessary. The idea is that there is a Catalan public company “that buys at fair prices and from local producers.”
Another of ERC’s proposals is to create an agricultural economic fund that acts as a basic agricultural income, giving priority to small farms.
In the plenary session that starts this Tuesday, Junts is in favor of giving a voice to the farmers themselves, as allowed by the institution’s regulations. It will be the Board who makes the decision at tomorrow’s meeting. The resolution proposals that the formation will present, waiting to see if it transacts its motions with other groups, try to collect the clamor of the sector, they point out from the post-convergent formation, which has brought this matter to the Chamber several times since December 2022 .
The vagaries of the calendar have meant that a monographic plenary session that JxCat recorded last October coincides with the height of the peasant protests throughout Europe and also in Catalonia, where farmers have blocked roads to make their demands visible several times in these last weeks and even flooded the center of Barcelona a few weeks ago with their tractors.
The five Junts resolutions also ask that the demands of the regional Executive in environmental and health matters not be greater than those already imposed by the European Union; to put an end to wildlife pests, be they wild boars, rabbits, roe deer, deer or other species that affect plantations; that aid be enabled for those affected by the drought; that there be a minimum agricultural income so that farmers do not stop collecting in the event of misfortunes; or they also want to enable aid and encourage young people who want to dedicate themselves to the primary sector.
With the plenary session that starts this Tuesday, there will now be five times that the Parliament has addressed the issue in the chamber, although it has now been ten years since the agricultural sector has been debated.
From JxCat they assure that they want this week’s plenary session to be “a turning point” that helps to “prestige and dignify” the sector, “that its importance is recognized” and that it leads to a change of model, both in intensive farms as the extensive ones, in such a way that there is no conflict between them.
“If we do not know how to listen to the revolt and do not give an adequate response, we risk the future and lose national identity,” warn Junts, which considers the sector as “a state structure.” “We talk about food and our culture,” these sources conclude.
