Agricultural policy

This Monday the EU agriculture ministers formally exchanged views for the first time on the Commission's proposal for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) post-2020 in a meeting chaired by Bulgarian Minister for Agriculture Rumen Porodzanov.

Ensuring generational renewal in farming was the focus of the informal meeting of EU Agriculture Ministers held in Sofia on 4-5 June 2018. In the context of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2020, the ministers discussed challenges related to the aging of the agricultural labour population and to rural depopulation.

Current EU chair Bulgaria backs increased payments by member states to the next long-term European Union budget to maintain financing for infrastructure projects and farmers from 2021, its finance minister said on Friday.

Central and East European EU member states face a battle to preserve lucrative EU funds for agriculture and social cohesion as Britain prepares to leaves the 28-nation bloc, and as the EU draws up a new post-2020 multi-annual financial framework, MMF, according to the Bertellsman Stiftung.

Dependent on foreign workers and subsidies from Brussels, Britain's small but important agricultural sector is losing sleep over the possible fallout from Brexit, but hopes a future outside the EU will open up new export opportunities.

How has Turkey, which was one of the few countries that was self-sufficient in agriculture, lost this feature and started importing everything, from sesame seeds to wheat? 

The increase of the productivity in agriculture and the processing of the domestic production are two major goals upon which we base our Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the coming years, Agriculture and Rural Development Daniel Constantin declared on Wednesday at a conference for launching the first measures of the new National Programme for Rural Development (PNDR).

Bulgaria may lose a part of a total of over EUR 1.3 B in EU subsidies for agriculture paid by the state due to yet another delay in the selection of an external auditor.

The current situation seems to be a repeat of the last-minute selection of Deloitte Bulgaria as a certifying authority for the EU subsidies for agriculture paid in the period October 2013 - October 2014.

The European Commission has warned that farmers injured by Russia's restrictive measures are not to expect immediate compensations.

The Bulgarian Association of Agricultural Producers (BAAP) has opposed plans of the government to impose a EUR 300 000 cap on the annual amount of area-based direct payments.