Agriculture ministers discuss crisis funding

The issue of a lack of crisis funding will be put to the European Commission on Wednesday.

European Union agriculture ministers today (10 November) discussed the availability of the European agricultural guarantee fund (EAGF) in the context of next year’s draft general budget for the EU.

Prior to the meeting, some member states expressed concern that there would not be enough crisis funding available for next year, since financial support to help farmers dealing with the consequences of the Russian ban on agricultural products was taken from the crisis fund set aside for 2015.

Christian Schmidt, German minister for food and agriculture, said that the support needed “to be looked at again”. “We do not think that the available money is enough, which means that we would need to put aside more money if we need it for new crises next year.” he said.

Phil Hogan, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, said that “no major decisions were taken” but he stressed that using the crisis reserve is “a serious matter of concern” for member states. He promised to bring this point to the attention of the European commissioners at their meeting on Wednesday (12 November).

He added that the European Commission is not in a good position to “respond in a way that the member states would like to” because of the ongoing discussions about the 2014 budget.

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