The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, today stressed that the Spanish initiative to ask the European Commission at the next Council of Agriculture Ministers of the European Union (EU) for additional funds for the wine sector already has the support of 13 Member States.
Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania have supported the Spanish request and signed a joint declaration, in which the difficulties that the sector is experiencing and urgently requests the mobilisation of the additional funds necessary to accompany the current extension of extraordinary measures.
The minister, who today chaired the Advisory Council on Agricultural Policy, which is being held prior to the Council of Ministers on 22 and 23 March in Brussels, also informed the regional ministers on the state of the Common Agricultural Policy, as well as the use of agents for biological control of plant pests, also known as alternative methods of pest control and, in many cases, substitutes for phytosanitary products.
Planas stressed that the wine sector, one of the sectors most affected by the restrictions on the HORECA channel, needs specific actions to rebalance the market and funds to finance them.
As far as biological control is concerned, the minister gave as an example the recent authorisation of Anagyrus aberiae to combat the cotonet pest, which has partly alleviated the effect of the disappearance of the active substances chlorpyrifos and methyl chlorpyrifos.
In this sense, Spain is committed to biological control as an essential tool in integrated pest management, which also reduces the use of pesticides on crops and responds to the objectives of the "From Farm to Fork" strategy.
FINAL STRETCH OF NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE NEXT CAP
With regard to the CAP, the minister pointed out that "we are in the final stage of negotiating the future CAP, both at European and national level".
The speed at which progress is being made in the trialogues on each of the three regulations (financing, management and monitoring, strategic plans and the common organisation of markets) is uneven, but Planas is confident that the European agreement on all of them will be reached soon so that progress can be made in the national negotiations.
With regard to the new aid management model, known as the "New Delivery Model", the minister defended the fact that, with respect to the amendments proposed by the European Parliament, the mandate to seek maximum simplification and flexibility will be maintained, and that the evaluation of performance will be homogeneous for all States.
For direct payments, the European Parliament's amendments relating to the figure of the genuine farmer, the small farmers' scheme or support for young people will be debated, for which Spain also advocates flexibility so that each State can determine the most appropriate policy for its situation, always under the principle of subsidiarity.
With regard to the regulation of the Common Organisation of Agricultural Markets, for the next Council of Ministers, the presidency has proposed debating the European Parliament's packages of amendments relating to market management and exceptional measures, and producer and interprofessional organisations.
