Brno at the centre of EU agriculture
One of the top Presidency events, the informal meeting of Ministers for Agriculture and Fisheries, will bring together almost twenty Ministers from the whole of the EU and hundreds of agrarian experts, who will meet in Brno on 31 May – 2 June. The meeting will focus on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy and, above all, the system of direct payments, the unequal distribution of which has, for a long time, been an object of complaint by farmers from new EU Member States.
The main themes of the meeting, i.e. the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and, in particular, the future of direct payments after 2013, reflect the long-term efforts of the Czech Republic as an EU Member State and of Czech diplomats working with agriculture, who have repeatedly stressed the need for a more efficient CAP. This issue is also highly relevant in relation to the current economic crisis.
"In light of the crisis, the EU has a unique opportunity for a specific and open debate shaping a future Common Agricultural Policy that will strengthen the competitiveness of European agriculture globally and in the long run focus on diversification and risk evasion and attract young entrepreneurs to agriculture", says Czech Agriculture Minister Jakub Šebesta.
The importance placed on the negotiations by Agriculture Ministers is also apparent from the attendance: according to preliminary information, 17 Member State Ministers and two candidate country Ministers will arrive in Brno. These include, for instance, the Ministers from the countries that form the "Trio Presidency" with the Czech Republic, i.e. French Minister Michel Barnier and his Swedish colleague Eskil Erlandsson. Other attendants include German Minister Ilse Aigner, Spanish Minister Elena Espinosa Mangana and Dutch Minister Gerda Verburg, their Danish colleague Eva Kjer Hansen and Finnish Minister Sirkka-Liisa Anttila. The delegations from Poland, Austria, Greece, Slovakia and Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary and other countries will be headed by their respective Ministers, too.
The future Common Agricultural Policy must be sufficiently effective to face new challenges, e.g. the increasing instability of markets and climate change. In addition, it should guarantee prospects for sustainable rural development in the EU.
"The existing system of direct payments is based on historical data and very complicated calculations and, in addition, it is burdened with an excessive number of exemptions", explains First Deputy Minister Ivo Hlaváč. "The Presidency and the Czech Republic will seek to set up a system based on a simple fixed payment equal for all the Member States and independent of production, the amount of which would not be determined by historical production indicators."
Although the meeting will not address funding volumes but the system of payments, the outcomes of the Ministers' debates will surely influence the discussion of the new financial outlook of the EU for 2014-2020.
For more information on the programme for media representatives, the venue and the agenda of the meeting visit the Main Calendar.
Contact:
- Tereza M. Dvořáčková, spokesperson of the Ministry of Agriculture for the Presidency
- tel.: +420 221 813 063, mobile: +420 737 213 030; e-mail: tereza.dvorackova@mze.cz
Last update: 3.6.2009 8:53
