Slovak farmers together with their partners from the V4 countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland) are ready to join the protests of their European colleagues against the shortcomings of the current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU, representatives of the SPPK said at a press conference.
SPPK (Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber) says that Brussels and its green policies are at the root of the plight of European farmers. This also includes problems resulting from the poor management of the Slovak Agricultural Payments Agency (APA) and the definition of a national strategic plan to implement CAP.
Last week, the European Commission gave in to some of the farmers’ demands by proposing to extend for another year the suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian agricultural exports to the EU. It also proposed allowing EU farmers to extend until the end of 2024 an exemption from CAP rules that require farms to set aside land for fallow.
However, Slovak farmers consider such concessions “pseudo-negotiable”, with SPPK chairman Emil Macho calling them “the last straw for both European and Slovak farmers”. He said:
“Farmers protesting, burning tyres, pouring manure on administrative centres in half of the EU countries – that is just a consequence of what is often caused by green fanaticism in the EU.”
Macho says Slovak farmers are ready to protest and will do so in coordination with farmers in neighbouring Visegrad countries. He also warns that they will take “hundreds of tractors” to the streets, as farmers in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Romania, Poland, Greece, Portugal and the Netherlands have already done.
In addition to the 5-6% of arable land that lies fallow in the EU bloc, Macho points to the many farmers who no longer work in the fields but sit in offices trying to “fill in the EU’s often meaningless administrative rules”. He stressed:
“On top of that, thousands of tonnes of crops, meat, and poultry are being shipped through ports and imported into Europe from the other side of the planet. That is why EU farmers are blocking the ports: they want to show that Europe can feed itself and still export.”
