The European agenda will be marked this Tuesday by the meeting of the Agriculture Ministries of the community countries, with the aim of analyzing the Commission's proposals and responding to the demands of farmers and ranchers, mobilized in many European countries – including Spain – for months now. Specifically, the council will demand from the Commission a rapid response to these rural problems, especially with regard to the simplification and flexibility of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and will urge the European Parliament to adopt quickly, before of its dissolution at the end of April, the proposed changes.
On March 15, the Commission released a package of measures to make certain requirements of the CAP more flexible after receiving proposals from the Member States. Minister Luis Planas has recently confirmed that the package of measures presented by the Commission “collects a good part of the demands raised by the Government, on behalf of Spanish farmers and ranchers.”
The agricultural summit is preceded by a meeting in Bruges of the Twenty-seven, where they addressed issues such as the protection of the fishing industry and measures to make the sector more attractive to new generations.
Hungary blockade
Another controversial issue within the European Union that Spanish farmers have opposed is the Nature Restoration Law. The European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, yesterday urged countries to “take the law to the finish line” – which seeks to recover at least 20% of land and marine areas by 2030 – to avoid undermining the credibility of the European institutions and their decision-making process, since it now depends on the final adoption by the Member States after the plenary session of the European Parliament approved it in February in a tight vote.
The processing of the file is in the hands of the Belgian presidency of the Council, which has postponed the vote on the law without a new date after verifying on March 22 that it did not have the necessary majority since Austria, Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden expressed objections, which were also joined by Hungary, in principle a defender of the “yes”, in a turn that unbalanced the balance in favor of the blocking minority and threatened to run the regulation aground.
Sinkevicius regretted that this Monday the “golden finishing touch” was not put on the agreement that was reached in November with the European Parliament. “In light of this blockade, the EU and the Member States put their reputation at international level at stake,” he stressed.
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UPA warns that new emissions rules will “affect” family farms
The Union of Small Farmers (UPA) denounces that the new text of the European Union (EU) rules on emissions generated by industrial facilities will negatively affect more small and medium-sized pig and poultry farms, that is, the family farms. Currently, the emissions regulations affect around 6,500 of the 82,000 existing pig farms in Spain. These are farms with more than 750 breeding stock or 2,000 bait places (from 30 kg).
However, the reduction in size limits for pig farms proposed by Brussels to include them in the scope of application of the Emissions Directive “will affect farms with more than 150 breeders or more than 1,160 finishing places (from 30 kg), in the case of pigs,” explains the agricultural organization. On the other hand, for egg-producing farms, the new limit is set at 21,400 laying hens, compared to 40,000 in the current regulations, which will affect 313 operators. The pork and poultry sectors are the only two livestock sectors obliged to apply the emissions reduction measures derived from the European Directive. This “regulatory pressure” will have a great impact, according to UPA, on the viability and profitability of small and medium-sized farms, which must require an integrated environmental authorization, with annual administrative costs of 3,000 euros, the agricultural group estimates.
The EU also proposes in its new text that any expansion or substantial change in farms be subject to public consultation. For the sector, it is an opportunity for “groups opposed to livestock farming to prevent these authorizations by classifying them as macro farms.”
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