EU Preparing CAP Reform, Croatia Expects to Get €5bn

ZAGREB, October 16, 2020 – The new reform of the European agricultural policy is aimed at ensuring sustainable production of high-quality food at affordable prices and with as less red tape as possible and keeping young people in rural areas. Croatia could profit from this by being allocated €5 billion.

The European Parliament meets in a plenary session next week to discuss the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is expected to become effective in 2023.

Parliament will adopt its position on negotiations with the Council of the EU on three key issues – support to strategic plans being developed by member states, financing and monitoring, and the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products.

According to Eurostat, there were 10.5 million agricultural holdings in the EU in 2016, 95% of which were family farms and nearly a third of their owners were aged 65 and over.

Speaking about the reform at an online news conference, MEP Suncana Glavak of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that aside from the proposed allocation of close to five billion euros for Croatia for agriculture and rural development in the next seven-year period, it was also agreed that the rate of co-financing for rural development would be raised from 70 to 85% for underdeveloped regions.

MEP Ruza Tomasic of the Croatian Conservative Party warned that insufficient generational renewal was one of the bigger challenges in the farm sector and the reason why the number of farmers was decreasing every year. She pointed to the importance of developing rural tourism as a significant contribution to rural economy and generational renewal.

Tomasic also underlined the importance of encouraging technological innovation that could bring about change in the farm sector.

As for the common organisation of the agricultural market, she said that it was necessary to ensure fast implementation of measures to deal with market disruptions adapted to a specific situation, such as the current coronavirus crisis.

The Common Agricultural Policy should improve the work of Croatian farmers, but Croatia must find a way to absorb EU money fast, efficiently and transparently, she said.

In recent years agricultural production in Croatia has been registering declines in almost all sectors due to excessive cheap imports and low purchasing power.

According to the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, agricultural production in Croatia has decreased by 26% in the last five years, from around HRK 21 billion in 2012 to around HRK 17 billion in 2019.

 

Subscribe to our newsletter

the fields marked with * are required

Email: *
First name:
Last name:
Gender:	Male Female
Country:
Birthday:	[DD] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 [MM] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 [YYYY] 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Please don't insert text in the box below!