On May 30 and 31, Kaspars Gerhards, the Minister for Agriculture will pay a working visit to Trakai (Lithuania) where he will meet Giedrius Surplys, the Lithuanian Minister for Agriculture and Mart Järvik, the Estonian Minister for Agriculture, to come to the agreement on the Joint position of the Baltic States in forthcoming discussions on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform after 2020 and the Multiannual Agricultural budget for 2021-2027.
The Minister, Kaspars Gerhards: “Soon, the newly-elected European Parliament and newly-appointed European Commission will start working, at the beginning of 2020, the EU Multiannual budget for 2021-2027 must be adopted therefore, it is important for the Baltic States to come to the agreement on the joint position and activities to protect interests of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in discussions with other Member States on the funding for agriculture after 2020. Our main priority is the fair direct payments and an appropriate funding for rural development the next EU programming period. We do not agree with COM proposal to reduce the funding for rural development by 15 % after 2020 and will do everything in our power so that is does not happen.”