Farmers dismiss the European agreement as “unacceptable” and put the losses to the countryside at 800 million

COAG has labeled as “unacceptable and insufficient” the agreement reached on the European fund to respond to Covid-19 , from which Spain will receive 140,000 million euros , and has denounced that Spanish agriculture will suffer an annual loss of the purchasing power of the aid of 800 million euros.

“Faced with ambitious challenges, we need ambitious budgets. A 12% cut in agricultural funds is unfortunate in a scenario of new demands within the Green Package, which will mean higher costs for farmers and ranchers,” said the Secretary General of COAG, Miguel Blanco.

The agrarian organization has specified that the final agreement of the 27 includes a decrease in agricultural spending in real terms (-12.2%), more drastic in the rural development chapter (-19.7%) than in the pillar of direct aid from the CAP (-9.6%).

The comparative analysis carried out by COAG quantifies this “hack” at 47,000 million euros, spread over seven years, with respect to the 2014-2020 financial framework. Thus, the annual loss at the community level would amount to 6,700 million euros, of which 804 million would correspond to Spain, given that the Spanish participation in agricultural funds is 12%. Added to all this is the 50% cut in New Generation funds , which are included in the Rural Development item to face Europe’s green transition.

This item goes from the 15,000 million that included the proposal of the European Commission to the 7,500 finally approved, in an agreement that includes that 40% of direct aid from the CAP will be conditional on actions to mitigate climate change.

“This is indicative of the lack of real will of the community institutions when it comes to reinforcing the policies of economic, social and environmental sustainability, and thus the social and professional model of agriculture and food security of Europ a”, has Apostille White.