They want to transform the entire agricultural support system in Europe, and this is a harsh step against farmers.

In order to protect the farming community and maintain a safe food supply, the Association of Hungarian Farmers' Cooperatives and Farmers' Cooperatives (Magosz) and the National Chamber of Agriculture (NAK) jointly launched an online petition, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture (AM) announced at a press conference in Budapest on Tuesday.

Sándor Farkas said that the reason for starting the petition is that Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, made public a proposal that will affect all farmers and consumers living in the European Union. This

the EU program is about how to change the scope of activities in agriculture, how to withdraw a significant part of the subsidies, which they would like to use for the Ukrainian economic situation at some point

he explained.

He announced that, according to the proposal made public, support for the meat industry and the production of meat will also be withdrawn so that people consume as many alternative plant-based proteins as possible.

The state secretary assessed these measures as saying that "not only the farming community, but also the entire Hungarian and European consumer society is in danger".

Sándor Farkas emphasized:

The government of Hungary is doing everything to ensure that agriculture operates as a predictable, strategic sector and produces food for the markets of Hungarian and European consumers in a safe, environmentally conscious manner. That is why they act together with the V4 countries.

György Zsolt Papp, the president of NAK, said that the draft report on the strategic dialogue of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be discussed because it determines the future of farmers. In addition, the draft targeted area-based support, which is the most necessary for the Hungarian farming community, since it is worth almost HUF 500 billion annually and affects more than 160,000 farmers.

The NAK president also mentioned that this report calls agriculture the main culprit for climate change. However, this is not the case, he emphasized, adding that European agriculture is not responsible for environmental pollution and climate change.

The president of the chamber requested that the farmers express their agreement by signing the online agricultural petition against the draft report. The petition is available at agrarpeticio.hu

According to István Jakab, the president of Magosz, the main question is hidden in the European Union proposal: how can the area-based subsidies be abolished, how can they be provided as income replacement subsidies for certain member states or certain regions, while this is practically already the "force" of the European Commission according to his will".

The president of the association believed that if the European Commission is given the opportunity to provide resources to certain groups not on a normative basis, but on a targeted basis, then these will be tied to the rule of law conditions, and from this point on, the chairman of the committee will decide which country's farmers will receive the funds. to resources.

However, with this step, subsidies would be withdrawn from those who produce healthy food and those who create a healthy environment.

In summary, he said:

they want to transform the entire agricultural support system in Europe, tied to the rule of law conditions, and this is a harsh step against the farmers.

He added that the German Peasants' Association had already indicated that this was not why they took to the streets before, and that they would continue the movements if necessary, and the French farmers were already organizing demonstrations on November 15.

István Jakab asked the EU organizations to reconsider their actions and not to transform the support background of Europe's agricultural and food economy system without impact studies, in order to avoid new farmers' demonstrations.

István Jakab - like the president of the chamber - encouraged people to join the petition.

At the end of the event, István Jakab and György Zsolt Papp were the first to join the petition.

On the agrarpeticio.hu page, referring to the EU submission, it can be read:

"It is outrageous that some Hungarian members of the European Parliament also support this proposal. Hungarian farmers deserve more than this! Enough of creating a mood against the farmers, enough of the blackmail!"

MTI