Delegations of the Agriculture Ministries of eight European Union countries have adopted a joint declaration on a draft European directive to combat unfair trading practices.
Agriculture representatives of Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia met the other day in Oponice in the south of Slovakia. The main topic was the fight against unfair trading practices. According to Slovak Agriculture Minister Gabriela Matečná tackling this issue was one of basic priorities of the Slovak Presidency within the Visegrád Four Group. The minister said:
"The merit is that those having the weakest position in the food supply chain, from our point of view, the farmers and food producers who at the same time possess the lowest power in negotiations, should not be pushed by big traders using unfair trading practices towards even lower margins they make nowadays. For this, we adopted a common position of eight countries. I will transfer this signed position to the Eurocommissioner Phil Hogan."
The representative of the Czech delegation Pavel Sekáč finds combating unfair trading practices one of four common themes that has not been solved for a long time and it's the duty towards the weakest - primary producers - to bring it to a successful end.
Not only the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan will be consulted, the common position signed by eight EU members should according to the Slovak Agriculture Minister Matečná be reflected within the talks on the EU's Common Agricultural Policy after 2020, too.
During the meeting in Oponice another important issue has been discussed: a definition of an active farmer and the formation of a crisis reserve to help European farmers in crisis situations. Matečná concluded that all partners agreed on the proposal that the European Commission should keep the definition of an active farmer at the national level so that every member state can define this on an individual basis.
