The Commission unveiled the EUR500 million program within the Extraordinary Agriculture Council held last week.
“This is a comprehensive, decisive and robust support package. It is a significant statement of support by the Commission for European agriculture. It reflects in a very concrete way the comment of President Jean-Claude Juncker in his State of the Union speech last week, when he described himself as a ‘strong supporter of the CAP,” European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development said Tuesday.
All 28 Member States will receive substantial aid worth €420 million in total, allocated in a fair, targeted and effective way to address problems in the dairy and pork sectors, while allowing Member States maximum flexibility in targeting the aid.
Germany will receive the most funds, EUR69.2 million, followed by France (EUR62.9 million), Great Britain (EUR36.1 million), The Netherlands (EUR29.9 million), Poland (EUR28.9 million), Spain (EUR25.5 million) and Belgium (EUR13 million). In Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic will be allotted EUR13 million to support farmers, Hungary will get EUR9.5 million and Lithuania will receive EUR12.6 million.
Other measures include new Private Storage Aid schemes for dairy and pork and the possibility of advancing direct payments.