the agricultural union Farmers Union announced the filing of the appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) against the approval of the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy (PEpac) of Spain for the period 2023-2027 for understanding that it “hurts farmers”. In particular, it denounces the conditions for being active farmer and the additional demands in fertilization.
Unió de Pagesos believes that this strategic plan, which will enter into force on January 1, “contains illegality and harms farmers”.
Among the elements he deems “illegal” he points out “the regulation of the figure of active farmer, with exceptions not permitted by European legislation, considering that this figure (requisite for being a beneficiary of direct aid from the CAP) will affect groups of natural persons, groups of legal entities and for some legal entities”, which will have a negative economic impact for all Catalan and Spanish professional farmers, since they will allow access to direct aid to farmers who do not meet the requirement that the agricultural activity is significant for them. “
Likewise, he denounces that the European Commission has also illegally approved Spain’s proposal to establish sustainable fertilization as a complementary national standard to the cross-compliance rules of the CAP, since Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 limits this type of complementary rules which do not they are a main target in the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (BCAM). The European Parliament and the EU Council have decided, in the agreement on the aforementioned Regulation, to eliminate the EC proposal to establish the main objective of the agricultural nutrient sustainability tool among the BCAMs.
“This fact supposes that another discrimination of Catalan and Spanish professional farmers can be sanctioned in the direct aid of the CAP, while the farmers of the rest of the EU will not be sanctioned because they do not have to comply with a BCAM contrary to Community law”.
The union explains that it is bringing this plan before the Court of Justice of the European Union because “it is configured on the basis of strategic plans prepared by each Member State and approved by the European Commission”, which means that the dispute must be brought directly before the European courts… Specifically, Unió de Pagesos will appeal against the decision of the European Commission to accept the Spanish plan.
It is not the first appeal presented, since ASAJA-Cádiz has presented a complaint to the European Commission, against the government of Spain, and in particular, before the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food “due to formal defects in the whole process of transformation of the new PAC (Pepac), which should enter into force from 1 January 2023, in addition to the inertia of society”.
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