Spain wants to force changes in the common agricultural policy (CAP). Punctual but fundamental modifications to help Spanish farmers and ranchers face the legal and bureaucratic problems that have already led them to mobilize for eleven consecutive days. The Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, moved the file yesterday by sending two letters to the Commissioner of Agriculture and to the Presidency of the Council of the EU in which he proposed simplifying the regulations and directly repealing some issues.
The package of twenty-two amendments to the CAP that Spain proposed on Friday is aimed especially at the small and medium-sized farmer, who is the professional that sources from the Ministry of Agriculture place at the center of the problem with the bureaucratic mess. In a letter addressed to Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski, Planas advocated for answers that put “emphasis on small farmers”.
In the letter sent to the Presidency of the Council, which now corresponds to Belgium, Planas specified the Spanish proposals. Agriculture wants to raise to 5,000 euros the annual payment to take advantage of the simplified regime for small farmers (currently the limit is 1,250 euros) or “exempt farmers with less than 5 hectares [of cultivation] from conditionality checks”. The proposal also included the repeal of crop rotation on irrigated areas or the exemption of ecological areas in community regulations. Minister Planas also defended being able to graze in fallows in cases of drought and in areas of low rainfall or allow the vertical work of stubble and green manure.
In addition, Planas included in his proposal to remove the obligation to monitor agricultural holdings with geotagged images, which would be mandatory from 2025. Spanish farmers complain that many of their holdings do not have digital coverage to be able to comply with the norm Planas agrees with this vision and pointed out in the letter that it is “an unaffordable requirement for both farmers and States”.
In the missives sent to the Commission and the Belgian presidency, their “great concern for the current situation of farmers’ protests in Spain” is expressed. One of the reasons for the discontent is, according to the minister, the strict application of the new PAC, which entered into force on January 1, 2023. This has meant “an important additional complexity” and the “establishment of certain strategies that hinder the proper exercise of agricultural activity”. Measures, said Planas, that “are not being understood” by the Spanish camp.
Planas wants to act as a spearhead to modify the CAP, as he committed to Asaja, COAG and laa at Thursday’s meeting. If reasonable and coherent measures are not adopted, the head of Agriculture left in writing , the new PAC model “will be a failure and it will be necessary to return to the previous one, that is, to a policy based on the fulfillment of requirements”.
“They count on Spain’s commitment to contribute actively and constructively to the simplification debate, which we consider essential to guarantee the good development of agricultural activity in the EU”, concludes Planas. The Spanish Government considers that the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture on the 26th “is the appropriate forum” to address all these changes.
Farmers’ organizations maintained during the day yesterday the planned mobilization schedule, despite the package proposed by the central government. On Friday there were road closures due to agricultural mobilizations in León, Teruel, Conca, Santander, Navarra and Pamplona. In Alicante, demonstrators threw a load of lemons onto the road to protest low prices and competition from other countries.
