On October 18, during the European Council meeting, farmers’ organisations from Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic arranged a protest demonstration, demanding for an adequate funding for the Common Agricultural Policy budget and equal competition conditions across the EU.
The Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and the Chairman of the European Parliament Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development Czeslaw Adam Siekierski visited the protesters and supported their demands. Representatives of the farmers also met with Dermot Ryan – a member of the cabinet of Commissioner Hogan and presented their demands to him.
The demands are the following:
- We demand that the direct payments the farmers of our countries will receive in 2021-2027 programming period are at least equal to the EU direct payment average;
- We demand that support for Pillar II (Rural Development Program) remains at least at the 2014-2020 level;
- We demand the establishment of a uniform ceiling for all the agricultural support Member States finance exclusively from state budget, as well as a uniform ceiling for co-financing from the state budget in the Rural Development Programs;
- We demand a radical simplification of support mechanisms and a reduction of administrative burden for both administrations and applicants/beneficiaries;
- We demand that specific financial and organizational mechanisms are created to encourage and facilitate the establishment of young farmers, as well as measures for new actors in the agricultural sector that no longer fall under the definition of ‘young farmer’.
“We live in a single, united Europe. We sell our produce in the single market. We need the support for the farmers to be sufficient and non-discriminatory“ – stressed the protesting farmers.
