The deputy spokesman of Vox in the Andalusian Parliament and national spokesman for Labour and the Countryside, Rodrigo Alonso, pointed this Monday to Pedro Sánchez and the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, as the main responsible parties for the complicated situation experienced by the Spanish primary sector. "Only Vox is truly willing to protect farmers, ranchers and fishermen and to offer solutions to the problems affecting the Spanish countryside," he insisted.
In an event held in Santa Fe (Granada), Alonso lashed out against the decision to support the elimination of the own funds of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and their absorption into a single fund, as well as the abolition of the Feaga and Feader funds. In his view, it is a measure that goes "against the demands of agrarian organizations and of the entire primary sector, which calls for specific and sufficient funding."
The national spokesman for Vox for Labour and the Countryside warned that Europe "seems to be moving toward a model that replaces production from the Spanish and European primary sector with products from third countries". As an alternative, he defended that "Vox is committed to negotiating a CAP with its own, broad and sufficient budget, which places the profitability of agricultural holdings at the center of its policies." In this regard, he emphasized that "an agricultural holding can be very sustainable from an environmental point of view, but if it is not economically sustainable, it has to close. And when our holdings close, our food sovereignty suffers".
Among the measures that Vox proposes on agricultural matters, Alonso focused on the need to review trade agreements that, according to what he said, cause unfair competition for Spanish producers. He criticized "the entry into our country of products from third countries that are not subject to the same production requirements and conditions that Spanish farmers and ranchers must comply with. A situation that places our producers at a clear disadvantage and directly harms the competitiveness of their holdings." For this reason, VOX demands denouncing and reexamining agreements with countries such as "Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey, especially those that do not guarantee fair competitive conditions."
During his appearance before the media in Granada, Rodrigo Alonso also attacked "the abandonment suffered by the province in terms of hydraulic infrastructure and he pointed as an example to the Rules dam, an infrastructure inaugurated in 2004 whose canals are still not being carried out". He recalled that the farmers and irrigators of the Granada tropical coast "continue to look toward a dam that stores 111 cubic hectometers of water that cannot be used because of the lack of the necessary infrastructure, while part of that resource ends up flowing into the sea."
Alonso lamented that "Granada has been betrayed and ignored by all the political parties that have passed through the Government of Spain. They have all promised to carry out the Rules canals, but none has complied". Likewise, he accused the Executive of that "while Pedro Sánchez allocates hundreds of millions of euros to hydraulic infrastructure in Morocco, he leaves aside the Granada farmers and irrigators, who have been waiting for decades for some indispensable canals to take advantage of the water from the Rules dam".
To conclude, the Vox leader appealed to participation at the ballot boxes next November 29, urging citizens to exercise their right to vote. "We ask Spaniards to vote thinking about who is going to defend our countryside, our agriculture and our food sovereignty in the face of competition from third countries. For Vox, the priority is the Spanish primary sector".