Frans Timmermans, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission, is risking the secure livelihood of the EU’s farmers by threatening to withdraw the EC’s common agricultural policy proposal unless it complies with “unattainable green goals”, the Hungarian minister of agriculture said on Monday.
István Nagy said in a statement that withdrawing the CAP proposal, which the agriculture ministers’ council and the European Parliament approved last week, would “ignore two years of work in the Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH) and the EP, and push hundreds of thousands of farmers into uncertainty”.
Nagy noted that the eco-schemes proposed by AGRIFISH and the EP were much more ambitious than the commission’s original goals.
The EC’s Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies should bring opportunities rather than unbearable burdens for farmers, Nagy said. A balance should be found between competitiveness goals and climate protection, he said.
Cutting the amount of pesticides by half or drawing 25 percent of farmlands into ecological production by 2030 are “impossible demands”, Nagy said. In the absence of alternative solutions and methods, such a move would threaten the EU’s competitiveness and possibly even food security, he said.
Featured photo by Tibor Rosta/MTI