On Monday February 26, the Minister for Agriculture, Armands Krauze will participate in the EU Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fishery, in Brussels where Ministers of Member States will seek a solution to a quick and adquate response to the current crisis in the sector of agriculture in many places in the Europe.
Lately, in many EU Member States, large farmers’ protests are taking place, expressing their dissatisfaction with extremely stringent environmental requirements, laid down by the European Commission, disparity in the EU and national policy documents and among farmers, too complicated bureaucratic requirements imposed by regulatory documents, lack of fair compensations for damages caused by third country inadequately low prices, inequality between the EU and imported goods, etc.
The Minister for Agriculture, Armands Krauze: “The current EU Agricultural Policy is complicated, creates uncerntainty about future of the Policy and stability, and all that makes planning of farmer’s work and basic acitivites more difficult. One thing is clear – Latvian Strategy Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy must be simplified, unnecessary bureaucratic requirements to farmers, incorporated in its current variant, must be eradicated, and the Ministry of Agriculture is already working on it. In addition, in general, the procedure of development of plans, their adoption and amendment must be changed in the EU so that it could be done quickly and without unnecessary delays according to rapidly changing conditions.”
Events of recent years (Russia’s war in Ukraine, caused by pandemic and still ongoing market impabalance, damaging weather conditions) are still impacting in unfavorable way Latvian farmers, their viability and competitiveness. Besides, the new Strategy Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy, after the first year of implementation – 2023 – turned out to be too complicated and has enhanced administrative burden thus, causing dissatisfaction of farmers.