The new European Commissioner for Agriculture, Christoph Hansen, should present his vision for the development of the sector at the beginning of next year – 2024-09-27 08:47:00

In the first hundred days of the newly formed European Commission, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Christoph Hansen must develop a vision for the development of the sector. Before that, he was tasked with preparing a report with recommendations from the dialogue between agriculture ministers related to the changes in the strategic plans expected of EU farmers. The information was presented by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and during the first meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Councilheld at the beginning of the week in Brussels, the agriculture ministers also met the European Commissioner from Luxembourg Christoph Hansen.

In her letter to the new EU agriculture commissioner, Ursula von der Leyen, she gave him 100 days to draw up a new common vision for the bloc’s agriculture, based on the strategic dialogue. This vision will transform both green policies and CAP funding. The basis will be the tying of direct payments to income instead of the size of holdings. But for the first time, it is not just about food production, but about the production of quality, clean and environmentally friendly food for European citizens.

At the meeting, the ministers approved the 17th amendment to the Bulgarian Rural Development Program (RDP) for the period 2014-2020, with which our country received approval for the transfer of 90 million euros from the outstanding investment measures to three of the most important for the sector sub-measures to investments for municipalities under sub-measure 7.2 and for private investment projects under sub-measures 4.1 and 4.2.

Regarding the changes in the Strategic Plan our country must also protect the demands of agricultural producers related to the implementation of ecological schemes. Farmers have serious objections to some ecological practices incompatible with geographical ones and climatic conditions of the country. In the next three months, our country is obliged to defend its demandsso that some of the greening clauses do not harm domestic production. It is essential that the administration succeeds in defending farmers’ demands for easy access to water resources and for new investments in irrigation.