Luxembourg (EFE).- The Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, assured this Monday that Spain will receive 81 million euros extracted from the crisis reserve of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to face the consequences of the drought in field.
“Spain would receive 81 million euros from the agricultural reserve intended to respond to the drought situation that we had indicated,” Planas declared upon arrival at the meeting of the European Union (EU) Agriculture Ministers being held today in Luxembourg.
According to the minister, Spain would be the member state that would receive the most money from this new aid package that the European Commission is going to present to the countries this Monday, on the sidelines of the meeting of ministers in Luxembourg. The final approval of the draft regulation with the aid will take place later.
“If confirmed at the time by the approval of this corresponding regulation, we would be the first recipient country of the European Union. It is excellent news that, obviously, today the first phase passes, ”he commented.
Response to Spain’s request
He pointed out that the final approval of the aid will take place “probably, in the next few days or in the next few weeks”, but stressed that the Commission’s proposal is already a response to the request that Spain had made to the Community Executive.
At the previous meeting of EU agriculture ministers, held at the end of May, the European Commission expressed its willingness to distribute 250 million euros from the agricultural crisis reserve to support farmers and ranchers most affected by drought and floods in recent weeks, as Spain, Portugal, France and Italy had claimed.
The package presented to the countries today is expected to include a total of 330 million euros, 250 of them from the agricultural reserve.
Planas also indicated that last week meetings were held with the autonomous communities and with the agrarian organizations “precisely to mobilize what refers to the decisions adopted by the Council of Ministers on May 11 of this year in relation to the drought and the situation of agricultural markets derived from the war in Ukraine”.
Direct aid and agricultural insurance bonus
“As you will remember, we mobilized 784 million euros from the Government of Spain, a part of it in direct aid, others in agricultural insurance bonuses, others in liquidity measures,” he explained.
He added that 355 million “are already in progress to be paid to our farmers in the coming months” and that there are 276 million “pending distribution in agriculture”, to which the 81 million euros of the agricultural reserve will be added.
“The sum of both concepts will be 357 million euros, which will bring us to a figure of 712 million euros of direct aid to agriculture and livestock due to drought, plus the 5 million that we have mobilized for beekeeping,” he said. .
“I think this is excellent news that I want to share. We are going to continue working in the coming days and in the coming weeks to reach the maximum consensus in the distribution of these funds for our farmers and ranchers”, he affirmed.