The European Commission (EC), through the Commissioner for Agriculture, Phil Hogan, confirmed this Monday (15.07.2019) that "there will be no products arriving in the European Union that do not meet European standards", in reference to those that will be imported thanks to the recent trade agreement with Mercosur.
The treaty with Mercosur and its consequences for the agricultural sector were the focus of the meeting of EU Ministers of Agriculture held yesterday in Brussels, where the Spanish acting Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, explained that Spain requested that the EC "assess the impacts on all sectors" that the pact will have.
"If the results are negative," Planas specified regarding the consequences, he asked that "measures be taken via a safeguard clause," a provision that allows an exception to the community norm due to a serious economic crisis.
The minister shares the majority view in the agricultural sector, which considers that it is in "an unbalanced situation" from a commercial point of view," although he pointed out that Spain has to "get the agreement with Mercosur be commercially positive.
To achieve this, Planas put the emphasis on sectors such as "olive oil and wines", which enjoy a Geographical Indication that, along with that of 357 other products, will be protected in the countries of the Mercosur and that can help Spain to balance the situation a little.
For his part, Hogan pointed out that the meeting, which had as its main theme to advance the negotiation of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the period 2021-2027, was the "opportunity to present what is in the agreement" with Mercosur, since "there is a lot of misinformation and incorrect data regarding the content."
To meet the demands of the affected sectors, the EC is already preparing "an explanation regarding the demands on beef, poultry, ethyl alcohol and sugar", at the request of the European Council (the countries) and Parliament.
Regarding the new CAP, Planas explained that Spain is in line with the European Commissioner's demands and believed that "support for strong content on environmental sustainability is essential."«.
To achieve this, Spain's main demand is to ensure that the EU maintains the budget it was granted for the 2014-2020 period for the new CAP, which according to Spain would maintain the same "level of ambition", although the minister insisted that this must be done "in a sustainable way and by opening our markets to international competition".
«We want first a reinforced conditionality, secondly the eco-schemes and environmental commitments, both in the first and second pillar," explained Minister Planas on the Spanish requests for the new agricultural policy.
In addition, Planas brought up the Spanish climate situation to argue that both the CAP and the EU must "provide a response through agricultural policy with greater climate ambition and greater environmental ambition."
"A climate-neutral, fair and social EU that promotes sustainable agriculture is very important for a climate-neutral economy," Planas argued.
The minister also highlighted the role of farm workers and he stated that "we must educate and provide good advice to help farmers adopt new practices in the use of precision agriculture."
At the meeting, the ministers also discussed the results of the report of the high-level group on sugar, which concluded that the difficult situation of the sector, which in Spain has plants in Castilla y León and inland Andalusia and which suffers from continuous price drops, is linked to the transition following the end of quotas in 2017 and that it still needs to find a new balance.
Source: EFE
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