The European Commission has imposed too excessive, irrational, and expensive requirements for the Green Deal, Poland's Agriculture Minister Czesław Siekierski said on Monday (Feb.26). He added that the Green Deal was meant to support the environment and counteract climate change, but so far has lead many farms to bankruptcy.
"That doesn't mean we shouldn't act to protect the environment, we just need to do it another way. ... The EU Commission has to reconsider its plans," Siekierski told reporters after a meeting of agriculature ministers from EU members states.
"Responding to Polish farmers' demands, I have called for exemption from rules on land lying fallow," he said.
"I also called for simplification when it comes to crop rotation, (and) administrative requirements. So as not to punish for mistakes made if they were unintentional and not meant to cheat and strain the EU budget over some payments. So that farmers could submit declarations rather than photos proving they have carried out given tasks correctly," the minister added.
According to Siekierski, another reason for which European farmers are protesting are imports from non-EU countries. In his view, the influx of farming products from Ukraine has rendered production uneconomic not only in Poland, but also in other EU countries.
"We need to introduce certain regulations in terms of commercial trade between Ukraine and the EU, including Poland. Poles, Poland, rural residents, farmers - we all have helped Ukraine, the Ukrainians, and we want to keep doing so. But we need to distinguish between humanitarian aid, military support or issues related with economic circumstances, and commercial exchange which has to be based on rational, normal rules," he argued, adding that farmers should receive financial support because they had burdened the cost of the Green Deal and imports from outside the EU.
"We all know about it and the EU should not pretend that nothing has happened," the Polish minister said.
Another growing problem, said Siekierski, has been caused by huge grain reserves kept in the EU.
"By the end of June, the reserve supplies of grain in Europe will have reached approx. 28 million tons. Of which 9 million tons in Poland. We produce approx. 35-36 million tons of grain and so we will have 25% of grain in reserve supplies. We need to liquidate this grain somehow to free storage space, empty the granaries. The question is how? EU should take action to support sale of European grain, and partially Ukrainian grain too," he explained.
According to Siekierski, this support could be in the form of transport subisidies or purchasing the supplies and sending them out as humanitarian aid to poorer regions across the world.
Farmers protest across EU
Farmers on Monday blocked a border crossing between Poland and Germany, threw bottles at police in Brussels and gathered in Madrid to demand action on cheap supermarket prices and what they say is unfair competition from abroad.
Agricultural ministers from across the European Union pledged to do more to cut red tape and help farmers as they convened in Brussels to discuss the crisis in the sector after weeks of angry protests.
The 27-nation EU has already weakened some parts of its flagship Green Deal environmental policies, removing a goal to cut farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap.
But farmers are demanding more.
"We're here again in Brussels today as farmers because the European Union is not listening to our demands. Our demands are for fair revenue," said Morgan Ody, general coordinator of farming organisation La Via Campesina.
"We produce the food and we don't make a living. Why is that? Because of free trade agreements. Because of deregulation. Because the prices are below the cost of production. So we demand the EU to move on this."
On the margins of the Brussels rally, riot police fired water cannon at protesters throwing bottles and eggs, while about 900 tractors jammed parts of the Belgian capital, not far from the cordoned-off area where ministers were meeting.
At a protest in Madrid, farmers from across Spain blew whistles, rang cowbells and beat drums, urging the EU to loosen regulations and drop some changes to its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) of subsidies and other programmes.
"It's impossible to put up with these rules, they want us to work in the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night - we're sick of the bureaucracy," said Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila.
Imports from Ukraine
In Poland, farmers angry with cheap imports from non-EUUkraine blocked the A2 highway at a border crossing with Germany. The EU decided two years ago to waive duties on Ukraine's food exports as Kyiv battles a Russian invasion.
"This is a show of common solidarity, that both Polish and German farmers will not allow these goods from Ukraine to continue to enter the European market," said Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers' union.
The EU aims to find a more effective solution so that farm products from Ukraine go to their traditional markets outside the EU, Belgian Agriculture Minister David Clarinval said after the ministerial meeting.
The agriculture ministers also debated a new set of proposals to ease financial pressures on European farmers, including a reduction in farm inspections and the possibility of exempting small farms from some environmental standards.
They asked the European Commission, the EU's executive, to make more ambitious proposals on cutting red tape, Clarinval said.
Time at desk
German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir said the EU needed to ensure farmers could earn good money if they opted for biodiversity and green measures, referring to existing EU farm policy as a "bureaucracy monster".
"The average farmer spends a quarter of their time at their desks," he said.
The EU has already scrapped over the past weeks a goal to cut farming emissions out of its 2040 climate roadmap, and has also withdrawn a law to reduce pesticides and delayed a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.
At the Madrid protest, some farmers said they just wanted to be allowed to use the same pesticides as counterparts outside the EU whose goods are imported into the bloc.
"We want to compete with the same deck of cards," said Juan Carlos, a 54-year-old sunflower oil producer. "If they use a certain product (to fumigate), I want to be able to use the same one."
Grievances vary from country to country, and not all farmers call for an end to green rules. La Via Campesina's Ody called on the EU to set up minimum support prices.
"We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way," she said.
Autorka/Autor: gf
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP, Reuters