Planas considers lost the negotiation of mirror clauses in the EU and assumes that he does not have the votes to appease the rural revolt

Cristina Alonso Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 22, 2024-10:42

The Government is getting involved at the highest level in the negotiation with the European Union to start a more flexible agricultural policy that will satisfy the farmers here in Spain and manage to appease the rural revolt, which has been on the asphalt for three weeks in the big cities.

However, four days before the meeting of the Council of Ministers of the EU, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,

Luis Planas, considers the negotiation of one of the key measures such as the mirror clauses lost.

Planas has been defending in Brussels for months the need to apply

mirror clauses to agri-food imports from third countries

so that they comply with the same environmental, health, animal welfare or phytosanitary requirements established in the European Union and thus guarantee competition on equal terms. .

It is one of the priority demands of farmers and ranchers who are demonstrating these days in Spain.

However, the minister already assumes that he will not achieve a consensus in the Council on Monday, although the Spanish Executive is putting the rest into this negotiation.

Just yesterday, President

Pedro Sánchez announced that he has sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen

, to address the "just" demands of Spanish farmers, "particularly all those referring to the reduction of bureaucracy, but not only, but also to have those mirror clauses with those other regions with which we trade.

"It is an issue that I plan to reiterate, but that

we will obviously not be able to close next Monday

, because it is an issue that has more scope," Minister Planas assumed this Monday during his speech at an informative breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Fórum .

Thus, the head of Agriculture considers the negotiation lost, at least at this time.

"We produce under certain conditions, we prohibit certain phytosanitary products and there are third countries that use them. There

is a problem of unfair competition

and our farmers complain about it and they are right, that is why we defend them," he stated.

Although immediately afterwards, and despite recognizing that there is a problem of unfair competition that affects Spanish producers, Planas has recognized that the defenders of mirror clauses

do not currently reach "a qualified majority"

in the European Council of Ministers. .

"Yes, a group of countries supported by the European Parliament," he stated.

Although he later admitted that, "if necessary", the reform would require negotiation within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to analyze whether the clauses are compatible.

The reform to introduce these clauses, therefore, will not occur in the short term, which will keep the farmers' pulse on the Government.

From all the organizations calling for the mobilizations that have been taking place for three weeks (both the most representative, Asaja, UPA and Coag, which negotiate with the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as others with great power of convening, as the Unión

de Unions or the 6F platform

) denounce unfair competition and demand the introduction of these clauses.

Planas has announced that he will convene the agricultural professional organizations with which he maintains a negotiating table starting Monday, after the European Council of Ministers, to advance possible solutions to the rural crisis.

However, from the Unión de Uniones, the association that mobilized thousands of farmers and hundreds of tractors yesterday in Madrid, they were already saying this Wednesday that they had little hope that Spain would be able to introduce a modification as far-reaching as the mirror clauses in Brussels and that They will announce a new calendar of mobilizations after knowing the result of the negotiations on February 26.