French Minister of Agriculture Didier Guillaume has once again called on the European Commission for EU assistance to address the consequences of the health crisis. According to him, the milk, meat, as well as the fruit and vegetable sectors can no longer wait.
The calls from EU countries and overarching agricultural organizations to Brussels are becoming increasingly urgent. The European support mechanisms for emergencies are still not operational. The coronavirus crisis has undermined several sectors that are struggling to sell their stocks due to the closure of food stores, hospitality, and also outdoor markets, such as in France. In other countries, markets have not been banned.
In a conversation yesterday with European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski, the French minister recalled the request “from several member states to quickly start private storage in the dairy and sheep meat sectors,” as well as for goat and veal meat, according to the French-language edition of Euractiv. There was also discussion about support requests for the horticulture and wine sectors.
Commissioner Wojciechowski will today participate in an emergency meeting in Brussels of the agriculture committees of the European Parliament, specifically about measures to support the various agricultural sectors. This session requires Janusz Wojciechowski to clarify his position on the various requests.
According to an EU announcement, the debate will focus on the measures proposed so far by the European Commission, including loans or guarantees on favorable terms to cover operating costs up to €200,000 per agricultural enterprise, and the reallocation of unused agricultural funds to combat the effects of the COVID-19 crisis in rural areas.
The Commission has also proposed reducing the number of physical farm inspections and increasing advances for direct payments and rural development payments from mid-October. MEPs will question Commissioner Wojciechowski on how he plans to guarantee farmers cross-border access to all necessary production inputs, including feed and crop protection products, and how he intends to ensure some form of cross-border movement of seasonal workers is permitted during the ongoing harvest season.
The problem for the Agriculture Commissioner is that various EU governments want different measures, mainly depending on the prominent agricultural sector in their country. Furthermore, EU countries can take many measures themselves but then must also fund them independently.
Over the past weeks, the EU Councils of Ministers, in consultation with the European Commission, have assembled a support package worth hundreds of billions of euros. In two weeks, EU government leaders must give their approval during an extraordinary video conference. After a presentation of the plans by the Agriculture Commissioner, a discussion will follow via video link with MEPs of the AGRI committee. Possibly, it will also be addressed whether emergency procedures should be established for the payment of CAP subsidies next year, in case the official adoption of the new CAP policy and the multiannual financial framework this year experiences further delays.