Slovak Minister of Agriculture: European Commission’s proposals threaten to eliminate Slovak agriculture

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The Slovak Minister pointed out that in the current budget period, the Slovak agricultural sector can count on 4.6 billion euros in support, but according to the proposal, this amount will be almost one billion euros less in the next one, which will lead to the complete impossibility of the sector. “Unfortunately, the information received on Thursday confirmed what we had said earlier. We were right that this is very bad, it means liquidation. It does not mean a devastating blow to the whole of Europe, but it will completely liquidate agriculture in Slovakia,” said Richard Takác, quoted by the TASR public service news agency. The minister highlighted that previously the commission had considered the creation of an independent support fund for the countries most disadvantaged by unrestricted Ukrainian agricultural imports, such as Slovakia, Hungary and Poland. He added that now, however, the commission – although it is considering the creation of such a fund – would support the states neighboring Russia and Belarus, i.e. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. “This turn of events is completely unacceptable,” Richard Takác underlined.

The Minister of Agriculture pointed out that Slovakia has been a member of the European Union for more than twenty years and has still not reached the level of the old member states in terms of direct subsidies

He explained that Slovakia currently receives 82 percent of the average of EU member states in these subsidies, while there are member states where this rate is 130, 140 or even 200 percent. He added that the Commission’s previous proposal was to take this situation into account when calculating subsidies for the next budget period.

MTI