On February 21, in Brussels, Raivis Kronbergs, State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), participated in the meeting of EU Council of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries where Member States discussed a topic of how to strengthen coordination between green deal, the EU Common Agricultural Policy and trade policy that would guarantee provision with food for EU inhabitants as well as provide farmers with the necessary income support.
Green Deal imposes many new requirements on farmers and food producers in addition to already existing voluminous regulations. The requirements will have an impact on business operators’ position on local market and their competitiveness internationally. EU farmers and food producers already now must comply with higher standards than third countries, as a result EU goods must compete with imported goods for a market share – on their own EU market. If the European Commission (COM) is increasing requirements only for EU producers, then the EU competitiveness on both the local and global market is reducing. MoA is pointing out that the EU trade policy must strive for ensuring equal competition conditions for all the participants both on internal and external market, at the same time, taking account of interests of agricultural sector.
MoA has also informed COM that in Latvia, a critical situation in pig production sector is ongoing. Since 2020, production costs of pig meat are growing as the price of forage has increased considerably that together with high costs of energy resources has made the situation in this sector particularly difficult. Therefore, the EU-level solution is needed here, and Latvia is repeatedly asking COM to urgently introduce the necessary financial support measure. It must be noted that this Latvia’s opinion and position are supported by several other Member States, which have also been directly affected by the crisis.