Croatian farmers could soon join their European colleagues in protests

Croatian farmers could soon join their European colleagues in protests, reported the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture (HPK). They emphasize that they support the protests of European farmers as they face the same problems domestically.

The decision will be made by the sectoral committees of HPK, and the final decision will be made by the Management Board of the association at a meeting scheduled for early next week.

– Several sectoral committees of HPK have held their meetings in recent days where they expressed a desire to join the protests of our European colleagues. We believe that the demands being discussed at the protests in the EU are something we also agree with, as they concern issues faced by the entire EU. Primarily, these are excessive demands of the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for farmers, as well as trade agreements that undermine the common EU market and make our production uncompetitive – said HPK President Mladen Jakopović.

HPK emphasizes that the agricultural community is facing enormous challenges and pressures that have only accumulated in recent years and that they are listening to the echoes spreading from protests across EU countries.

– Economic burdens and bureaucracy are suffocating farmers across the EU. Throughout the EU, the effects of climate and geopolitical crises significantly impact farmers. On top of that, we feel that even more restrictions and more European regulations will be imposed on us with severe and irreversible consequences for production, income, and increased imports with lower ecological and social standards. In recent years, HPK has strongly warned about this, and as a result, we have a situation that is currently very tense in many member states, while farmers are taking to the streets because the survival of the European family farm, as it is known today, is in danger – they say at HPK.

Reciprocity in standards

They further state that all members of the two associations – the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations (COPA) and the General Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives in the European Union (COGECA), of which HPK is a member, convey that there is an urgent need to provide short-term responses to the questions of thousands of farmers who have been expressing their dissatisfaction for several months. This primarily relates to decisions on urgently needed deviations from the conditions of the CAP, eco-programs, and agro-environmental-climate obligations that are linked to it for the year 2024.

It is also necessary to adjust the next proposal for Ukrainian autonomous trade measures (ATM) by creating a system that ensures that the destination for all shipments of Ukrainian agricultural products is determined before entering the EU and it is essential to introduce a system that guarantees that Ukrainian products reach that final destination and do not end up on the common EU market. Additionally, they believe it is necessary to introduce import thresholds for any agricultural goods subject to trade liberalization based on the annual or quarterly average for the combined years 2021 and 2022.

– One of the demands of our EU colleagues, with which we agree, is to ensure reciprocity in agricultural production standards and equal conditions to ensure fair trade – they convey. They explain that trade concerns far exceed the effects of trade liberalization with Ukraine. In this sense, the Mercosur agreement is, they say, unacceptable for most farmers in the EU.

– European agriculture is the most sustainable model in the world. Farmers and agricultural cooperatives are key to food and energy supply chains, crucial in the current geopolitical context, and deserve to be recognized as a strategic sector. Therefore, it is important for us to support our colleagues, but also to make our own decision on how we will express our dissatisfaction with the CAP and the decisions of European leaders that are detrimental to the overall Croatian agriculture – conclude HPK.