The president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, assured this Wednesday in Brussels that "we need a Europe that stops being contradictory with agriculture" and has endorsed the demands of the agricultural sector by ensuring that "the situation of absolute imbalance between environmental discourse and reality".
Mazón participated this Wednesday in the European Parliament in the event 'Cultivating the future: challenges and solutions for a European regional agriculture', organized by the delegation of the Valencian Community in Brussels with the aim of addressing crucial issues that affect the Valencian agricultural sector and in which the main representatives of the Valencian agricultural organizations have been present. Previously, she had met with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, a meeting that he described as “very important and constructive” to advance the defense of Valencian interests.
In statements to the media, Mazón has assured that "when we talk about the environment, but what we do is prevent the development of the main defenders of the environment, who are farmers, we are working with contradiction" and he described it as " "just and desperate" the protest actions that the main agricultural organizations have organized in recent weeks and that, as they recently advanced, will continue until June, the date of the European elections.
Representatives of the main agricultural organizations (AVA-ASAJA, LA UNIÓ Llauradora i Ramadera, ASAJA Alicante, UPA-PV and CCPV-COAG) and Valencian cooperatives participated in the meeting. The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, José Luis Aguirre, also participated in the event.
At the meeting, the organizations presented a consensual position document of which Mazón highlighted its “strategic nature, rigor in the diagnosis and its strength in identifying the challenges we face” and in which he values that it proposes “solutions and proposals for the future".
The document, presented by the director of Cooperatives Agro-alimentàries, Enrique Bellés, emphasizes that “behind the large macroeconomic figures, a deep structural crisis is hidden”, caused, among other aspects, by “a series of political decisions adopted by the community institutions”, which “allow differentiating elements in the conditions of production and marketing, and which very directly affect the competitiveness of European productions”. Likewise, he denounces that the current scenario means that farmers and ranchers are not getting their bills, while it seems that in community institutions "there is no real perception that there is a problem."
The document also addresses a battery of proposals made by the Valencian production sector, including the adaptation of the environmental objectives of the Green Pact to its economic and social reality; the elimination of bureaucracy and the simplification of the CAP; greater firmness in decision-making after the detection of shipments from third countries contaminated with quarantine pests; maintain the authorization of use of active materials as long as there are no viable biological or biotechnical alternatives; demand reciprocity from third countries in limiting the use of said materials; or promote mirror clauses in trade agreements.
Likewise, issues such as the modification of community regulations on the functioning of the food chain and good commercial practices are addressed; real support for the incorporation of young people and women into agricultural activity; and the request for greater involvement of community institutions in solving the problems systematically reported by farmers and ranchers.
