At the high-level Brussels conference on the European Union budget for the 2021-2027 period, held with the participation of the European Commission’s Vice-President and Commissioner for Budget, Minister of State for Agriculture Zsolt Feldmann stressed that the resources available to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) must be maintained at least at their current level to enable the realisation of established goals.

“With the help of the CAP, European farmers supply over 500 million citizens with high quality and safe food every single day. A reduction in CAP resources would ultimately lead to increasing food prices, and we would be risking a reduction in choice, and possibly quality”, the Minister of State highlighted.

“In addition to a reduction in resources, the European Commission is also planning to tie the payment of funding to even more environmental and climate protection conditions”, Mr. Feldmann said. “Hungary agrees with the approach according to which the CAP must do more for the realisation of environmental and climate protection goals, but this is not in harmony with the proposed budget. More cannot be achieved from less”, the Minister of State stressed. “Conforming to further environmental conditions cannot endanger the income security of European farmers and cannot restrict their competitiveness. Replacing the high-quality products produced within the European Union with imports from third countries that are possibly not produced in a sustainable manner and are perhaps of lower quality, cannot be a goal”, Mr. Feldmann emphasised.

The Minister of State for Agriculture pointed out that Hungary has an interest in the adoption of an EU financial framework that has a suitable budget and is farmer-friendly, and that the Government was one of the first to indicate that in the interests of this it is prepared to increase its contribution to the joint EU budget.

((Ministry of Agriculture Press Office))