The goal of the current President of the Council, Germany, is for member states to adopt the Council’s position on the regulations of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in October. In preparation for the agreement, EU agriculture ministers discussed the most important remaining issues at a session of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels on 21 September.

Following the meeting, head of the Hungarian delegation Minister of Agriculture István Nagy highlighted the fact that the new CAP must fundamentally conform to three requirements: a suitably ambitious budget, suitable agricultural policy instruments, and regulations that can be implemented in practice.

At the end of June, EU heads of state and government agreed on the EU budget for the next seven-year multiannual financial framwork, as part of which the volume of resources that may be spent on the CAP was also determined. “It is also of primary importance that we have succeeded in maintaining the ratio of Hungary’s share, as a result of which Hungarian agriculture will be receiving over 12 billion euros in funding over the next seven years”, the Minister of Agriculture pointed out.

According to plan, the agriculture ministers of the member states will be deciding on professional issues at the 19-20 October meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council. “During the remaining debates, which promise to be arduous, we will be fighting to ensure that the area-based and production-based funding received by Hungarian farmers, as well as development funding, remain unchanged during the new programming period. A major debate is also expected with relation to the continuation of transitional national funding, which provides supplementary resources to sensitive sectors such as the beef, dairy, milk and ewe sectors”, Mr. Nagy highlighted.

The most regulatory elements that remain to be resolved relate to the new funding distribution model. “It is particularly important that we are able to adopt a set of regulations that assure that farmers will receive the funding they are due every year in time”, the Minister stated.
Parallel to the adoption of the Council position concerning the reform of the CAP, the European Parliament will also be developing its own position. There will then follow the final stage of CAP negotiations, during the course of which the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission will attempt to come to a final agreement within the framework of trilateral negotiations.

(Ministry of Agriculture/MTI)