The Government will hold this Monday a series of meetings with the entire agri-food and fishing sector to examine the current scenario and assess possible actions that allow mitigating the economic impact of the conflict in the Middle East, which is already being felt by farmers, ranchers, and fishermen.
First, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, will open in the morning the round of contacts with the representatives of the fishing sector, in a meeting with the employers' association Spanish Confederation of Fisheries (Cepesca) and with the National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds (FNCP).
The fishing employers' association has announced that it will take advantage of the meeting to demand from the Executive the urgent implementation of compensatory measures that allow sustaining the fleet's activity and avoiding problems in the fish supply, given the risk of stoppages due to the sharp increase in production costs.
Among the demands they will raise are the creation of mechanisms to reduce the cost of ship fuel, raising the caps on public aid per vessel and not per company, and studying a temporary suspension or reduction of VAT on fishery products in order to alleviate economic pressure on the sector and the entire value chain.
Once the meeting with the fishing representatives has concluded, Planas, together with the Minister of Economy, Business and Trade, Carlos Cuerpo, will meet late in the morning (1:30 p.m.) at the Ministry of Economy headquarters with the spokespersons of the Spanish Federation of Food and Beverage Industries (FIAB), as well as the fertilizer and feed sectors.
The agenda will continue in the afternoon. From 6:00 p.m., at the Ministry of Agriculture, Planas will meet with the agricultural professional organizations Asaja, COAG, UPA and Unión de Uniones, as well as with representatives of agri-food cooperatives.
Economic protection
This series of meetings takes place after last Thursday the Government met with unions and employers' associations to discuss economic and social protection measures against the impact of the crisis in the Middle East, triggered after the attack by the United States and Israel on Iran.
In that high-level meeting with social agents participated the first vice-president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero; the second vice-president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz; the third vice-president and Minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen; the head of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo, and the Minister of Social Security and government spokesperson, Elma Saiz.
After that meeting, the Minister of Economy, Trade and Business, Carlos Cuerpo, announced that the Executive is working on a royal decree-law to address the consequences of the war in the Middle East, which will include fiscal measures to contain the rising cost of energy and specific support for two of the sectors most affected by this crisis: agriculture and road transport.
For now, the Government seems to move away from the option of reintroducing a generalized fuel subsidy, similar to the one applied during the Ukraine war of 20 cents per liter, as well as a new reduction in food VAT, although Cuerpo has specified that all alternatives are still being analyzed.
In relation to the content of the package, the minister assured that “special attention” will be given to the sectors most affected by the situation, in particular to the countryside and road transport.
Alongside these initiatives, Cuerpo detailed what he denominates the "skeleton" of the Government's plan given the possible derivations of the conflict in the Middle East, which will be supported by "rigor," "responsibility," and "flexibility" to adjust the measures as the geopolitical and economic situation evolves.
That framework is articulated around four axes: structural actions that deepen the commitment to renewable energies, ecological transition and electrification, which are proving to be “a life insurance policy” to cushion the crisis, and measures aimed at the “minimization” of the impact of the cost of electricity and energy, which will be fundamentally of a fiscal nature.