The European Commission has promised to speed up the approval of the reprogramming of Portugal’s National Strategic Plan for the implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), said the Portuguese Farmers’ Confederation, which met with Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski on Wednesday, but noted that the ball is now in the government’s court.
“The European Commissioner responded to our proposal that the commission speed up the approval of the reprogramming of the PEPAC [Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan] and promised greater speed, but now it’s in the government’s hands,” Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, the confederation’s president told Lusa.
As Mendonça e Moura noted, this is an “act of management” that can be adopted by the government still in office and therefore requires “courageous reprogramming”.
The Confederation of Portuguese farmers met Wojciechowski in Brussels on Wednesday. Organic payments and integrated production schemes were also on the agenda.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food told Lusa that it had concluded talks with the European Commission and that payments would start this month.
“The Ministry of Agriculture and Food has already concluded talks with the European Commission and has reached a positive result that will allow payments to be made to farmers under the eco-regimes [organic farming and integrated production] as of this month,” reads a note sent to Lusa.
On the Brussels side, according to CAP, there was a commitment to authorise the payments “very quickly”.
However, “some administrative procedures have to be completed, and the ball is back in the government’s court, which has the competence and the obligation” to resolve these issues.
The Confederation also brought to the meeting with the European Commissioner for Agriculture a request to end the crop rotation obligation.
“The Commissioner said that not only did he agree, but he would take a proposal to this effect to the College of Commissioners. I’m very pleased,” said Mendonça e Moura.
Also today, CAP will hold a meeting with the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations (COPA) on the organisation’s functioning and activities.
Thursday’s agenda includes a public meeting with the agricultural federations of Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands to “analyse the general situation of farmers in Europe”, a meeting with MEPs and the Portuguese Permanent Representation to the European Union (REPER).
The trip will end on Friday with a visit to an agricultural production site in Flanders.
On Thursday, the Council of Ministers approved a resolution to support the agricultural sector with €320 million to mitigate the effects of drought and inflation on production costs.
Contacted by Lusa at the time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food explained that this amount is part of the support package for the sector, with more than 400 million euros in funding, launched by the government.
The rest of the money relates to support that depends on the “green light” from Brussels, it said.
The government had announced a support package of more than €400 million to alleviate the effects of the drought and strengthen PEPAC, but this did not stop the sector from protesting.
(Pedro Emidio | Lusa.pt)
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Source: euractiv.com
