Croatia wants EU subsidies and funding for agricul to remain unchanged in its next 2021-27 budget period, and Zagreb expects the European Commission to help Croatian sugar refineries struggling to survive amid spiralling prices in the sugar market, Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolusic said on Thursday.
Tolusic made his comments after meeting with the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan, who was on official visit to Zagreb.
After Hogan’s meeting with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and government ministers, Tolusic told reporters that the talks focused on the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the bloc’s draft budget for the 2012-27 period, and changes in the new budget which might affect EU’s spending on farming.
Also on the agenda were the Croatian government’s programme for developing Croatia’s eastern Slavonia region, as well as the concerning state of affairs in the local sugar refining industry.
Hogan said that €1.5 billion would be put at Croatia’s disposal for the Slavonia project through direct payments allocations.
Tolusic told reporters that Zagreb is in favour of keeping the total EU spending earmarked for CAP in the next budget period to remain unchanged from the current 2014-20 budget, which now stands at €408 billion.
According to the current proposal for the 2021-27 budget, spending for CAP would be cut to €365 billion, with Croatia getting access to little over €4 billion for its agriculture and farming, either via direct payments to farmers or rural development projects.
Tolusic said that Croatia also welcomed EC’s efforts to simplify the application process and flexibility in the use of CAP funding.
Problems of Croatia’s sugar industry was also discussed, with major refineries in the eastern cities of Zupanja, Virovitica and Osijek struggling to cope with the recent fall in sugar prices.
“Our sugar refineries in Zupanja, Virovitica and Osijek are currently in a difficult situation due to the overly saturated sugar market. We expect the European Commission to send a positive signal to Croatia regarding assistance to sugar refineries in order to help them overcome the current crisis,” Tolusic said.
For many years, sugar prices in the EU had been kept stable and at higher levels than in the rest of the world through a system of production limits and import tariffs. The ending of that regime in September 2017 allowed European beet farmers to significantly boost their output, but has also led to plunging prices of sugar on the European market, threatening many sugar companies across the bloc.
Hogan said that the European Commission was aware of the difficulties on the sugar market, and that a task force would be formed in January to deal with the matter.
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