The Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation sent an open letter to President Klaus Iohannis, Prime Minister Marcel Čolak and Minister of Agriculture Florin Barb asking them to support some measures regarding the transportation of grain from Ukraine at the meeting of the EU Council on Agriculture and Fisheries. the territory of the European Union, reports News.ro.

“Having regard to the meeting of the Council of the European Union (Agriculture and Fisheries) on 23 January 2024 (10:00) at which, according to the agenda, issues related to trade in agricultural products and the proposed derogation in 2024 from standards 7 are considered. and 8 regarding goods, agricultural and environmental conditions (GAEC), the Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation asks you to take all possible steps to convince the European Commission and the Member States to support both declaratively and officially by voting the specification of the 2 points presented earlier. listed in the minutes of the MADR meeting of 15.01.2024, in items 2 and 3 of this meeting, namely: Granting an exemption in 2024 from standards 7 and 8 on Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) under conditions at least similar to 2023; The adoption of the EU decision to ensure the survival of European farmers until the publication of the Commission’s proposal on the renewal of trade measures on agricultural products from Ukraine,” says the letter sent on Sunday by the Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation to President Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Marcel Cholaku and Minister of Agriculture Florin Barbu.

Farmers are asked to take the following measures:

• Creation and implementation by April 30 of a European system to ensure the identification of destinations for all consignments of Ukrainian agricultural products before entry into the EU (transit, normal and/or special/temporary import), weighing at entry and exit entered into the system, where they are transparently available at any time to any interested party to ensure that Ukrainian products reach their respective destinations and not remain en route or deviate from the original route/destination, even partially in terms of quantity.
• Introduction of import thresholds (ordinary and special situations of temporary import, specific to fairs, exhibitions) for any agricultural commodity that is the subject of trade, based on the average annual or quarterly indicator for the years 2021 and 2022. Any products imported above this threshold must be exported outside the EU and therefore only allowed to transit through the EU with electronic seals that are tracked in real-time by GPS, without deviations from the route or unnecessary stops.
• Notification of European authorities and automatic activation of a safeguard clause at the national level in case of violation of current legislation by owners and transporters of agricultural products from the territory of any member state.

“Dear gentlemen, we ask you to take all possible steps together, insist and take joint responsibility in discussions with the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, Mr. Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, Mr. Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski. and the ministers of agriculture of the member states for solving the two main problems, including the one they are protesting, and publicly announcing the results by January 24, 2024. We clarify that similar appeals have been sent to all Romanian and European authorities to take the necessary measures and prevent what will happen if these two main problems are not resolved by 24.01.2024, unable to find an excuse that they did not decide to know “, the letter also states.

The farmers finally point out that otherwise “all three of you must take responsibility and bear the consequences of increasing protests in Romania and other member states, which will grow much faster than anyone expects, and that the next step for disaffected farmers in most EU member states move and block activity’ in Brussels.

Since the beginning of the protests, almost two weeks ago, President Klaus Iohannis has not had any reaction.

Prime Minister Marcel Cholaku said on Antena 3 on January 15 that “almost 99% of the requests from the Ministry of Agriculture have been closed”, that 90% of them have already been included in the budget for the current year, but there was no time. promotes them as rites.