Hungary battles EU over planned billions in agriculture cuts
Hungary sees the European Commission’s proposal to cut funding for the Common Agriculture Policy in the coming seven-year budgetary period as unacceptable, the state secretary for agricultural and rural development funding said in Brussels on Monday, adding that preserving an independent, two-pillar agricultural policy was in the interest of Hungary and all other member states.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU agriculture ministers, József Viski said the EC was proposing to merge financial resources into one united fund. European farmers’ organisations and the European Parliament had voiced their concerns over the plan last year, Viski said. Last year, during Hungary’s European Council presidency, agriculture ministers unanimously adopted the stance that the independent two-pillar policy was necessary, with autonomous rules of implementation, he added.
Viski said the EC had ignored the input of member states and farmers, the main players in implementing CAP and its beneficiaries. Should the plan go through, the funding proposed for Hungary would be some 20 percent less than in the current period. When that sum is adjusted by inflation, “the situation becomes even more desperate,” he said.
Viski insisted the EC was trying to push the onus of cutting funding for certain policies in the next period by trying to push policies to compete for finite funding. “That is not beneficial for any sector,” he added. “Member states shouldn’t be made to bear the responsibility for EU decisions impacting European agriculture and the food industry. The Mercosur agreement and free trade agreements with Ukraine will have a fundamental impact on the situation of European farmers, Hungarians among them,” he said.
Member states should be able to disburse funding through their own systems, he added. Farmers should receive area-based funding reliably, on time and on schedule as they have done for decades; that is key to income, food and production security,” he said.
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The E.U. is absolutely hellbent on doing a screwjie on the ordinary peoples of Europe.
We are not allowed to use our money to make our citizens’ lives easier by reducing their energy bills, protecting them from violent and parasitic third-world illegal aliens, or supporting our farmers who are struggling hard enough as it is.
LGQHDTVQWERTY+- “Pride” parades, endless bicycle tracks that are used by no-one, courses in degeneracy for little schoolkids, as well as a veritable army of professional activists demanding all the above? Yup, there is endless funding for all that!
E.U., go to hell already!!!