"They applaud each other, congratulate each other, take photos, but nobody looks at the consequences of the agreement for farmers and ranchers, who are a real disaster." This is the general sentiment of the Spanish countryside after learning the details of the agreement reached this past dawn between the European leaders in Brussels and which represents a cut "with all the letters" for the agricultural sector, and specifically for the funds of the Agrarian Policy. Common (PAC).

Thus, even if the new CAP period does not officially enter into force until January 2023, direct aid will already decrease this year by 9.6%, which will represent close to 600 million euros less per year for Spain. Specifically, the European Union budget for the next seven years cuts global agricultural funds by 10% compared to the previous Community financial framework, limiting itself to a budget of 343,950 million euros when previously they amounted to 382,855 million.

Of this amount, and as direct aid from the first pillar, 286,144 million were foreseen and they remain at 258,600 million (-9.6), although 2.7% reinforces the allocation of cohesion funds, to 377,000 million. The Rural Development budget -the second pillar- goes from 96,712 million euros to 85,350 million, with a decrease of 11.74%.

With these data, the "outrage" has returned to the agrarian organizations , fearful in the previous days that "the big losers" were going to be once again farmers and ranchers. But it was never weighed that the snip was of these disproportionate dimensions: "It is not understandable any type of cut in the budgets, and less at the moment," says Lorenzo Ramos, UPA general secretary: "If we are essential and necessary [during the pandemic], How is it possible that we are faced with budget cuts? " This agrarian leader now appeals that "at the national level, a policy of distribution of funds be carried out in a more linear and fairer way so that it favors farmers and ranchers who really need it, not super-intensive productions" by which advocates that "not cut equally" to all producers.

From Asaja, the assessment of the negotiations that Pedro Sánchez has carried out to defend the national agrarian sector is very critical: "It has been a disaster and will represent a definitive blow to the Spanish countryside," regrets Ángel García Blanco, president of this organization in Extremadura, which calls the President of the Government "incompetent" . "He has once again demonstrated that he has never cared about the rural world nor, of course, the Spanish farmers and ranchers who, among other things, have stood up during the pandemic, helping to disinfect the rural population with their tractors, in populations that no one cared about because the media did not arrive, and in addition we have at all times, and despite the difficulties, the existence of products in supermarkets. "

The mobilizations recover

García Blanco recalls that the agrarian sector paralyzed the mobilizations that emerged at the end of January throughout Spain, where fairer prices were demanded for the sector and not a sale at a loss, as occurs in most cases today.

"Can you imagine that there would be a crisis not due to a pandemic but due to a lack of food ?" Asks García Blanco, who recalls that the sector has already been weighed down by the new tariffs that it threatens to impose the United States Department of Commerce -a Donald Trump-, for the problems caused by Brexit or the recent "negative" agreements with Mercosur, especially for the sugar or livestock market.

Thus, the representative of Asaja assures that the sector "will return with more force than ever to the streets, to the roads, to prepare a 'hot autumn' if the pandemic allows it, because now they hardly even let us take four tractors onto the street "

In this sense, this morning there was a concentration of farmers in the Port of Algeciras (Cádiz), called by all agrarian organizations, denouncing that "it is inadmissible for our borders to be a strainer for products that violate European norms and agreements "and adds that" the European Union cannot continue to allow the entry of food products from third countries without taking into account the Community principles of preference and reciprocity ".

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