“There are no simple solutions but firm, continued and shared commitment. It is better to promise little and deliver everything.” President Pere Aragonès highlighted his commitment to the “legitimate demands” that the primary sector expressed out loud in the monographic plenary session on the countryside held yesterday in the Parliament, after their protests throughout Catalonia, while the opposition blamed him for his “ apathy” and having acted “late and poorly” in the face of such demands.
The president attended the frustration expressed by some of the most important agricultural associations in Catalonia in the plenum promoted by Junts per Catalunya. The representatives of the Union of Farmers of Catalonia, of Young Farmers and Cattlemen of Catalonia, of the Federation of Agrarian Cooperatives of Catalonia and Plataforma Pagesa, intervened in the chamber to describe the critical situation that the Catalan sector is experiencing "because of bad management and nefarious policies of the last few years", about which "the drought has been the last straw". "Now we are at a point of no return. Either we are a priority economic sector that is taken care of, or the protests will not end", they warned.
The agrarian representatives, among whom were not two of the most important union organizations, the Associació Agrària de Joves Agricultors and the Unió de Petits Agricultors i Ramaders – the subject of the PSC's complaint – expressed their hope that a unanimous defense of the Catalan family agrarian model and a roadmap for the coming years, with special attention to the most pressing problems, such as excess bureaucracy, lack of aid, drought and the “disparagement” felt by the sector by the administrations .
Aragonès picked up the glove. He admitted the complex context in which the countryside survives and was sympathetic to its main problems, such as the “need for fair prices” – his party, ERC, proposes a public company that distributes agricultural products – the reduction of bureaucracy, avoiding “unfair competition” resulting from agreements with third countries, or adjusting drought restrictions to favor the “survival” of the sector. But he also warned that there are problems whose solution "is not in the hands" of the Generalitat.
The president blamed the application of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in Spain and the Ministry of Agriculture for the “negative effects” of trade agreements with third countries and the need to modify the food chain law, while the Minister of the sector, David Mascort Mascort, vindicated the management of the Government in the face of the demands of the countryside.
Mascort demanded parliamentary unity in the face of the agreements signed by the Catalan Executive with the sector last week, which are based on a change in the nomenclature of his department so that it recovers the terminology 'agriculture, agriculture and fishing', and on the reform of the council of administration of the Catalan Water Agency so that the voice of the primary sector is integrated.
The councilor launched proposals such as the study of a “basic agricultural income” that prioritizes young people and small producers, and creating its own insurance system in Catalonia to provide coverage for circumstances that are now outside Agroseguro. But he claimed that the Government has been “the only one” that has “always” been “on the side of the field.”
The opposition, on the other hand, contradicted this statement. The leader of the PSC, Salvador Illa, claimed the weight of agriculture in the Catalan economy: “We want a Catalonia with chips and peaches,” he said, but his group warned that the Government's agreements with the sector “will not provide solutions, perhaps more frustration.” And Junts demanded a “change of course” from the Catalan Executive with a sector that asks for “more money, less paper and a little prestige.” Even so, both groups were proactive.
For their part, the CUP and the commons charged against the EU's trade agreements with third countries, which cause "unfair competition", and PP, C's and Vox criticized the Government, Junts and the PSC for having led the sector to the ruin".
