Planas conveys Spain's priorities for the Polish presidency of the EU to the Autonomous Communities

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, chairs the Consultative Council on Agricultural and Fisheries Policy

Luis Planas has explained Spain's priorities to the Autonomous Communities in view of the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union, which began on 1 January with the focus on the debate on the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and which is expected to reach the Danish Presidency in the second half of the year.

Spain will once again express the need for the post-2027 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to have adequate funding to meet future challenges to ensure the competitiveness and sustainability of farms. Although the MFF is not expected to be presented until June, the Government of Spain has already started working on a coordinated position.

The Polish presidency intends to focus the work of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on the measures needed to improve the competitiveness of the agricultural sector and increase its resistance to crises. The new presidency recognises that they are essential both to stabilise farmers' incomes and to ensure food security."

In addition to the presentation of the priorities of the rotating presidency, an item on "trade issues", which is dealt with on a regular basis in the Agriculture Councils, was discussed with the ministers of the Autonomous Communities. The European Commission is expected to report on the status of approval of the agreement with Mercosur and the amendment of the agreement with Mexico.

Minister Luis Planas will insist on explaining the interesting opportunities that the agreement with Mercosur offers the European agri-food sector, and particularly the Spanish one, because it will mean the progressive elimination of tariffs for flagship products such as olive oil, wine, spirits and fruit, and also guarantees protection for 59 protected geographical indications.

Conversely, the minister explained that for imports of products that may be more sensitive for European producers, strict quotas and transitional periods are established. He stressed that all imported products must meet strict European food safety and animal welfare standards, ensuring that the quality of products on the European market is not compromised.

Planas pointed out that the global agreement between the European Union and Mexico, whose modernisation negotiations were concluded last Friday, also offers interesting opportunities for both parties, although the new texts still need to be analysed in depth.

Next Monday's Council of Ministers will devote an item to the need to review the performance settlement and simplification procedure. The Ministry considers the current procedure to be unacceptable, and also considers it to be extremely burdensome. For this reason, in November 2024, Spain took the lead in sending a letter to the European Commissioner, which was signed by all EU ministers, requesting that the basic acts of the CAP be amended without delay to correct this situation. The Commission is expected to indicate how it intends to approach the so-called "simplification package" that it will propose in the spring.

The minister explained to the Consultative Council the European Commission's intention to present two proposals for regulations, the first concerning the cross-border application of unfair trading practices (UTP) and the second concerning the modification of the CMO to strengthen the position of farmers. In the first case, the Spanish chain law will serve as a reference for the new regulation, in two fundamental aspects, the prohibition of selling at a loss along the chain and transparency in the price formation process.

Amendment of the Mediterranean fisheries regulation

On fisheries, Luis Planas informed the ministers that Spain will table a proposal to the Council of Ministers next Monday to reform the regulation of the Multiannual Management Plan for the Western Mediterranean with the aim of guaranteeing greater legal certainty and economic predictability for the fishing fleet and operators in the sector. Among other measures, it is intended that reductions and increases in fishing days should be limited to a maximum threshold of 20%, in order to avoid drastic situations such as the one that occurred this year, in which the Commission applied a 79% reduction, although the Council of Ministers finally agreed on the possibility for the fleet to introduce a series of selectivity measures and temporary closures to recover the same days that were available to it in 2024.

The Spanish proposal is also that the measures on Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas should be multiannual rather than annual and that 10% of the fishing possibilities should be allowed to pass between two consecutive years to facilitate the planning of the activity.

The points to be reformed also include the request to repeal the article that requires quotas for all species to be set on the basis of the Maximum Sustainable Yield of the most vulnerable stock, when the Mediterranean fishery is a mixed fishery.

Non official translation