The Minister for Agriculture, Armands Krauze, attended a meeting of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries of the European Union (EU) (Council) in Brussels on Monday, September 23, assessing implementation of the second year of the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP SP).
The Minister for Agricultur, Armands Krauze: “I call on the European Commission and the Member States to continue their work to make the Strategic Plans of the Common Agricultural Policy simpler. Implementation of the agricultural policy must be made more comprehensible, both for farmers themselves and for society as a whole. In our opinion, the European Commission should listen to our proposal, which has received almost unanimous support from the Member States."
As the first years of implementation of the CAP SP shows, management of the agricultural policy system is complex for both farmers and administrations. Instead of the simplification sought, the new implementation model of the CAP SP has created an additional administrative burden, focusing on technical conditions and requirements rather than the results achieved.
Latvia has therefore prepared a proposal to simplify the planning and reporting of CAP SP. Mr Krauze also drew attention to the fact that, with each subsequent year of implementation of the CAP SP, Member States will introduce more and more measures, which will also increase the administrative burden of reporting on farmers and the authorities responsible.
It should be noted that the complex and fragmented system of planning and reporting of CAP SP can also have financial consequences for Member States. Unable to adequately justify deviations from the planned indicator values, countries may be subjected to reductions in aid or even suspensions. But one of the main problems is the European Commission's (EC) requirement to provide an exhaustive justification for any, even the smallest, deviation, despite the fact that EU law does not.
Latvia's proposal to simplify CAP SP has received the support of almost all the EU Member States, demonstrating the importance and urgency of the issue.
The Minister for Agriculture, Armands Krauze, also discussed the complexity of the CAP SP system and the justification for excessively time-consuming deviations in bilateral negotiations with the EC Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Janusz Wojcehowski (Janusz Wojciechowski).
In a conversation with the Commissioner, as well as during a discussion in the Council, the Minister urged the EC to grant EU emergency support to Latvian agriculture. This year, too, a number of adverse conditions have been experienced – in May, a devastating frost, a severe storm in July, as well as winter has caused great damage to winter crops. Grain quality has suffered and the expected yield of cereals, potatoes, fruit, berries and vegetables has decreased. Moreover, the sector has yet to recover from the natural cataclysms experienced in 2023.
Discussing the situation on the agricultural market, the Minister, Armands Krauze also informed that imports of agricultural products and goods from Russia and Belarus have dropped sharply in July this year compared to June. This has been achieved through the introduction by the EU of increased customs tariffs on imports from these countries. The Minister called on the EC to develop and publish as soon as possible the next proposal to impose higher customs tariffs on Russian and Belarusian agricultural products and goods.
