Brussels: the Twenty-Seven on the verge of pruning agricultural rules, ongoing demonstration by farmers
The agriculture ministers of the Twenty-Seven are discussing proposals on Monday in Brussels to simplify and relax the CAP, under pressure from hundreds of tractors parading in the Belgian capital. From dawn, they should be “at least several hundred” critics, “between 500 and 800”, to once again paralyze the European quarter, estimates Fugea, the second Walloon agricultural union. 1er Already in February, more than a thousand agricultural vehicles invaded the streets of Brussels on the sidelines of a European summit, making it the epicenter of the anger shaking the continent.
Alongside the main Belgian organizations, delegations from Spain, Portugal and the powerful Italian trade union confederation Coldiretti are expected to hammer home their demands at the European Council.
Anxious to defuse discontent, member states demanded from the European Commission a vast project of “simplification” rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Brussels has presented the first ideas, which the ministers will examine on Monday: the obligations to maintain permanent meadows should thus be relaxed this year for breeders undergoing reconversion, so that they do not lose income.
Likewise, a tolerance would be granted to farmers not respecting the requirements of the CAP due to extreme climatic episodes. Finally, reporting requirements would be reduced and use of satellite imagery would help reduce “up to 50%” control visits.