EU agriculture ministers meet on Monday in Brussels to analyze responses to the crisis facing farmers, with a new protest being organized by the sector on the same day and location.
EU agriculture ministers meet on Monday in Brussels to analyze responses to the crisis facing farmers, with a new protest being organized by the sector on the same day and location.
According to a European diplomatic source, the council – which was not on the agenda of the Belgian EU presidency – “will be unilateral, taking into account the situation of farmers across Europe.”
At the meeting – in which Agriculture Minister Maria do Ceu Antunes will represent Portugal – the latest measures presented by the European Commission will be analysed, in addition to those already adopted by the various national governments.
In particular, the ministers hope to take a tentative approach to the proposal to simplify the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) aimed at easing the bureaucratic burden on farmers, as well as changes in land allocation obligations.
The same source noted, “There is a lot of organization, and a lot of administrative burden.”
The Council also wants, according to the same source, to address “structural problems in the sector,” as well as the objections of some member states, such as Poland, to the facilities granted to Ukraine to export agricultural goods.
The EU Council meeting takes place on the same day that a new farmers' demonstration is scheduled to take place in Brussels.
On Thursday, the Community Executive proposed measures that include, in particular, simplification of the mechanisms of the Common Agricultural Policy, methodologies for some controls and clarification of the use of the concept in the broader sense, for disasters such as drought or floods.
