The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, has stated that the aid announced this Tuesday for the wine sector and for animal and plant health "are very significant," while calling on the autonomous communities "to do their part."
In the meeting of the Sectoral Conference on Agriculture and Rural Development, the territorial distribution of 132.33 million euros among the autonomies was approved this Tuesday. Of this amount, 18.5 million are allocated to actions in animal and plant health, while 113.7 million are directed to various measures of the Wine Sectoral Intervention within the Common Agricultural Policy, of which 62,152 euros are assigned to Cantabria.
Before closing a course at the UIMP in Santander, the head of Food emphasized to the media that this is "a very important extraordinary contribution from the Government of Spain."
"I want to emphasize that these funds from the Government of Spain are an extraordinary contribution, apart from some that are fixed by European regulations, which are within the framework of regional competencies," he added, underlining that the central Executive thus reinforces the policies developed by the autonomies.
Planas reiterated that the autonomous communities are responsible for animal and plant health, and that the General State Administration intervenes to reinforce and improve these actions.
In this regard, he once again insisted that the state contribution is "very significant" and warned that, from there, each regional government "has to do its part accordingly" so that the overall effort can be properly valued.
The minister indicated that animal health constitutes "one of the great challenges" for Spain and focused on the fact that Member States are "discussing" with the European Commission to avoid cuts in aid in the next financial framework, given that these subsidies are aimed, among other purposes, at tackling diseases of mandatory eradication.
He recalled that Spain has already suffered from these types of health problems, which is why he defended the need for "a good response and good administrative coordination" among all the administrations involved.
"These issues are outside of politics and outside of political confrontation. We have to unite to respond to something that is a real problem that exists within the current world as a consequence of climate change and also of the increase in communications," he stated.
Payments for the extra cost of fertilizers
In another matter, Planas announced that this week the payment of 665 million euros to more than 400,000 farmers has begun to compensate for the "extra cost" of fertilizers.
"It is another aid among those that the Government of Spain has been providing. It is good that our aid is greeted positively, but everyone must also do their part in this regard," he reiterated, insisting on the shared responsibility of all administrations.