Farmers from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia protested as EU leaders gathered in Brussels yesterday (22 November), calling for equal treatment of Baltic farmers in the bloc's long-term budget. At the moment, they receive a quarter of what some farmers in other member states receive. Even though all EU farmers operate within the single market and need to live up to the same environmental,...
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A draft ordinance has been prepared to amend and supplement Ordinance 2 of February 21, 2001 on the special requirements for participation in approved schemes for national co-payments and specific support. It includes an application form for support under the scheme on improving the quality of fruits and vegetables produced in Bulgaria, with separate application forms available for physical...
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Late last night, addressing the Riigikogu, Helir-Valdor Seeder, the Minister of Agriculture, told that the Estonian State must ask itself where is the balance between industrial production and traditional family farms and how to maintain food production and the more purposeful use of land resources. According to the Minister’s words, lower salaries, higher diligence, rapid...
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European Union president Herman Van Rompuy is to make new proposals on the bloc's hotly-contested trillion-euro budget in hopes of saving an extraordinary summit this week feared to end in failure. A working dinner between EU president Herman van Rompuy and Europe ministers produced "a constructive exchange of views", highlighting that "all member states show commitment to reach a...
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Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Saturday rejected as "unacceptable" a proposal from EU President Herman Van Rompuy to cut the bloc's 2014-2020 budget by 75 billion euros ($95 billion), AFP reported. "The government does not like this budget and we have made that known to the (European) institutions and we hope that there will be another proposal that will be more reasonable," Rajoy...
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State Fund Agriculture approved 67 projects under measures 313: Encouragement of tourism activities, 321: Basic services for the economy and rural population and 322: Village renewal and development. The municipalities will invest in the reconstruction of road networks, community centers and churches as well as building sports facilities, eco roads and bicycle lanes. The total amount of...
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There’s just a week left to the end of the Re:turn to the Future - Agriculture photo/video contest. So far we’ve received 250 photos and 6 videos revealing rural beauty in the four target countries of Bulgaria, Estonia, Portugal and Malta. After the end of the contest on 26th November, the international jury of representatives of the four target countries will have to deal with...
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Centralised France may lack the clout at local government level to ease its new shift to greener energy, contrasting with the regional and grass-roots power that helped push through the rise of renewables in Germany. France, the world's most nuclear reliant country, has vowed to cut its dependency on the atom and boost its lagging renewable energy output, Reuters reported. A failure to...
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One week before heads of state and government are to convene a special summit in Brussels to discuss the 2014-2020 budget, Council President Herman Van Rompuy tabled a €950-billion proposal that is €75 billion less than the Commission's initial recommendation. The proposal severe cuts are foreseen in agriculture, which may anger France, and in cohesion, which would...
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The European Commission has approved a latest tranche of 14 programmes to promote agricultural products in the European Union and in third countries. The total budget of the programmes, running for a period of three years, is € 53,86 million of which the EU contributes € 27,15 million. The selected programmes cover fresh and processed fruit and vegetables, milk and milk products,...
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The Danish government has said it intends to abolish a tax on foods which are high in saturated fats. The measure, introduced a little over a year ago, was believed to be the world's first so-called "fat tax". Foods containing more than 2.3% saturated fat - including dairy produce, meat and processed foods - were subject to the surcharge. But authorities said the tax had inflated food...
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The European Court of Justice on Thursday rejected a lawsuit brought by Hungary against Slovakia over the disputed naming of wines from the Tokaj region along the two countries' border, reported AFP. Hungary argued that Slovakia should not have been allowed to change the language in which wines from the region are inscribed in the European Union's E-Bacchus database of protected trademarks...
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The most important thing for milk branch during the new Common Agricultural Policy is competitiveness of the growers and manufacturers. Deputy minister of agriculture and food Dr. Cvetan Dimitrov say that at time of conference about the problems of milk branch at Inter Expo Centre, Sofia. He also said there are many challenges for this branch as the extra time to reorganize the milk farms...
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The European Commission opened a fresh probe into Chinese solar panel makers on Thursday, raising the heat in the latest dispute between China and its Western trading partners.The Commission said it had "launched an anti-subsidy ... investigation into imports of solar panels and their key components" made in China after industry lobby group EU ProSun charged that Beijing was giving its...
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The 2011 accounts present fairly the financial position of the European Union and the results of its operations and its cash flows for the year. Revenue and commitments were free from material error. However, payments were affected by material error, with an estimated error rate of 3.9 % for the EU budget as a whole. The level of error remained similar to 2010 when it was 3.7 %. In 2011 the...
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