Hungary continues to maintain the import ban on Ukrainian agricultural products introduced under its own jurisdiction

(Photo: AM)

István Nagy announced that in addition to the usual fishing quota negotiations at such times, the environmental conditions of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2027, the agricultural market situation or the recently presented generational renewal strategy will also be on the agenda. Regarding the agricultural market situation, the Minister indicated that “war psychosis is not decreasing”, and instead of the situation of EU agricultural markets and the current problems of European farmers, the Danish presidency is asking the member states for suggestions on how Ukraine could be supported in complying with EU production standards. They are doing all this shortly after the European Union agreed on extra high quotas during the adoption of the European Union-Ukraine free trade agreement, at the proposal of the commission, he added.

István Nagy stressed that there is no question of Brussels supporting Ukraine at the expense of the resources of European and Hungarian farmers.

“Instead, we should talk more about how the 35,000 tonnes of honey coming from Ukraine under the agreement will affect the EU beekeeping sector, or what the 120,000 tonnes of poultry will mean for the EU poultry sector, or how EU grain producers will cope with the 1.3 million tonnes of wheat, or what the zero tariff rate for corn will do to EU producers,” he said. He added that he and his Slovak and Romanian counterparts will present to the council their joint letter sent last week, in which they requested special protection for farmers in bordering member states against Ukrainian imports.

The minister mentioned that the Common Agricultural Policy after 2027 will also be on the agenda

This time with environmental and climate protection rules, and “as the negotiations progress, it becomes increasingly obvious that the proposed structure will not work”. He believed that the proposed 20 percent cut would make the resources insufficient to achieve the goals, and the unified plan concept would be inoperable in the case of area- and animal-based measures, which operate according to a fundamentally different logic. According to István Nagy, “with this irresponsible proposal” Brussels is not only endangering the livelihood of farmers, but also food security. The Common Agricultural Policy should be kept outside “the single basis, with a separate budget, a two-pillar structure and its own tailored implementation and delivery rules”, he said. The Minister also spoke about the Commission’s generational renewal strategy, which is an important document, as the ageing of the farming community is an increasingly pressing problem in almost all member states, and a solution must be found. He noted that “this strategy also includes Brussels’ astonishing idea” that pensioners should be deprived of their basic support from 2032, which he called outrageous and will therefore be rejected.

AM/MTI