During the past few months, farmers across the EU have been severely impacted by extreme weather events and trade disruptions linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine all of which have had severe impact on farming activities and the food supply chain.
Consequently, this has created difficulties for farmers in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) implementation, with repercussions for the 2024 agricultural year. Copa and Cogeca have repeatedly asked the European Commission to consider derogations from CAP conditionality (e.g. GAEC 6, 7 and 8), eco-schemes and agri-environment-climate commitments which build on these, for 2024. We called for a common action to address these severe difficulties.
Today, under pressure from the demonstrations, the President of the European Commission has announced a “one-year derogation from CAP rules on fallow lands”. Revised conditions for GAEC 8 were part of the greater flexibility expected by farmers.
Copa and Cogeca take note of this advance, but this decision comes late in the agricultural calendar and remains limited. We hope that Member States will further strengthen this proposal to have a more global approach especially in Members States that have been particular impacted by extreme climate events, during the European Council meeting tomorrow.
Fonte: Copa and Cogeca
