Vasco Cordeiro addresses farmers’ concerns with the European Commissioner for Agriculture.

Foto: European Union / Giedre Daugelaite

The President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), Vasco Alves Cordeiro, met in Brussels with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, with whom he addressed the growing concerns of farmers expressed across the EU regarding the pressures on their incomes, their profitability and the regulation of the sector within the EU framework.
Referring to the meeting, Vasco Cordeiro said: “I consider this meeting with Commissioner Wojciechowski to be very important, where I was able to present the position of the regions and cities and seek solutions for farmers”.
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has long defended the fundamental role that regions and cities must play in the management and implementation of agricultural policy in order to better adapt rural development funds and measures to specific territorial realities. In the Common Agricultural Policy reform, the CoR has warned of the need to address imbalances since 80% of direct payments go to a small proportion of beneficiaries, creating a major distortion between large and small farms. The distribution is also unbalanced from a territorial point of view.

“The Common Agricultural Policy is a necessary and indispensable EU instrument to support farmers in achieving better incomes and in the ecological transition. However, we cannot allow the sustainability of agriculture and the protection of the environment to become mutually exclusive objectives. Both are necessary to build a just transition and a better future for agriculture, the environment, all our territories and those who work in them,” added Cordeiro.
The European Committee of the Regions also calls for the fight against unfair trading practices and better protection of farmers’ position and income distribution along the supply chain.
“To address the growing discontent across Europe, regions and cities must be at the table to help find solutions and build bridges with people’s everyday lives. The current Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture, launched by the European Commission, does not include a single local or regional authority. We want to contribute with answers for people’s future,” concluded Cordeiro.

At the meeting, Vasco Cordeiro also addressed the need for the Polish Commissioner to pay particular attention to the situation of the agricultural sector in the Azores, given the impact that the increase in production costs has had on the region’s farmers.
The reinforcement of Community funding under POSEI, the increase in the maximum support limit for the outermost regions under the de minimis regulation for agriculture, and the necessary adaptation to the reality of these regions in the application of the rules for implementing the “FIT for 55” package and the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) were some of the points made by the President of the Committee of the Regions to the Commissioner for Agriculture.
The Committee of the Regions believes that only a renewed partnership between the EU and national and regional institutions can boost the recovery of rural areas and the ecological transition of European agriculture.

in Diário dos Açores, Osvaldo Cabral-Director

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Cultures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publication and ADMA (Azores-Diaspora Media Alliance)  at California State University, Fresno–PBBI thanks the sponsorship of the Luso-American Development Foundation from Lisbon, Portugal (FLAD)