EU approves 100M euro for farmers in five EU countries, including Bulgaria, over imports from Ukraine
The European Union has approved a 100 million euro support package for farmers in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, who are facing issues related to logistical bottlenecks following large imports of certain agri-food products from Ukraine, the European Commission (EC) said on June 26.
The support package allocates 9.77 million euro to Bulgaria, 15.93 million euro to Hungary, 39.33 million euro to Poland, 29.73 euro to Romania and 5.24 million euro to Slovakia.
Exceptional and temporary preventive measures on imports of a limited number of products from Ukraine entered into force on 2 May and will be phased out by September 15 2023.
A Joint Coordination Platform is also working on improving the flow of trade between the European Union and Ukraine via the Solidarity Lanes.
Meanwhile, the EC proposes to mobilise additional EU funding for EU farmers impacted by adverse climatic events, high input costs, and diverse market and trade related issues. The new support package will consist of 330 million euro for 22 EU countries.
EU farmers from Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, and Sweden will benefit from this exceptional support of 330 million euro from the Common Agiculural Policy (CAP) budget.
The countries may complement this EU support up to 200 per cent with national funds.
Member States had shared with the EC assessments of the difficulties faced by their respective agricultural sectors. The measure will be voted by member states at a next meeting of the committee meeting for the common organisation of agricultural markets.
The national authorities will distribute the aid directly to farmers to compensate them for the economic losses due to the market disturbances, the consequences of high input prices and rapidly falling agricultural product prices and, where relevant, for the damage caused by the recent climate events, particularly acute in the Iberian peninsula and Italy. The aid can also fund distillation of wine to avoid further market deterioration in the sector, the EC said.
Payments for both support packages should be made by December 31 2023, the EC said.
The member states covered will have to notify the EC about the details of the measures’ implementation, notably the criteria used to calculate the aid, the intended impact of the measure, its evaluation, and the actions taken to avoid distortion of competition and overcompensation.
(Photo: Andreas Krappweis/sxc.hu)
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