The Agriculture Ministers of the Twenty-Seven supported this Tuesday the changes proposed by the European Commission to respond to complaints from the agricultural sector, which will see reduced information and environmental requirements that must be met to access community aid.
“The proposal includes all the requests made by Spain” to the Community Executive, celebrated the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, who advocated “accelerating” its implementation and continuing to discuss other measures, in addition to deploying the directive on unfair commercial practices. The review will come into force once the European Parliament approves it by urgent procedure, but it will be applied retroactively from January 1.
Specifically, the review exempts farms of less than 10 hectares from information obligations, controls and possible fines related to environmental compliance requirements. Brussels maintains that the impact of this measure will be important for farmers (in Spain, it will benefit 345,000 taxpayers, more than 50% of the total, according to Planas), but irrelevant with respect to compliance with the EU’s climate goals. In addition, the obligation to keep 4% of farms fallow is eliminated, a rule that in any case was already suspended for the second consecutive year; From now on, only “diversification” in crops will be requested, a rule that can be repealed in the event of extreme climatic events.
The large European agricultural union, Copa-Cogeca, called on the European Parliament to approve the changes as soon as possible, which offer farmers “more flexibility to carry out the transition towards a more sustainable agriculture” and will allow rapid adjustments to strategic plans. national. But some farmers remain dissatisfied, and around 250 tractors, according to Belgian police estimates, once again collapsed the main arteries of Brussels, especially the European quarter, although the protest had a much smaller following than the previous two. The Vía Campesina association, for whom the changes introduced are insufficient, demands the end of free trade agreements. Environmental groups are not satisfied either. In a letter signed by 16 NGOs, they accuse the EU of eliminating the “minimum” sustainability rules introduced in the Common Agricultural Policy and “giving in to the false narrative that the environment is at odds with agriculture”, putting “in danger ” jobs in the sector in the long term.
