The European Commission is to prepare a proposal to “reduce the administrative burden” for farmers, its president Ursula von der Leyen announced on Thursday, as she tries to respond to the sector’s outrage, AFP reported.

“We will work with the Belgian Presidency (of the Council of the European Union, no) on the proposal that we will present (…) to reduce the administrative burden” of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) procedures, the German leader said at the end of the European summit.

The proposal will be “ready in time” for the next meeting of EU agriculture ministers on February 26 (in Brussels), she promised.

“We must protect the legitimate interests of farmers, especially in our trade negotiations, ensuring a level playing field in terms of standards,” von der Leyen added.

A negotiated trade deal with South American MERCOSUR countries is seen as a scare for Europe’s agricultural sector, although Brussels admitted earlier this week that “the conditions have not been met” for it to be signed in its current form.

On the sidelines of the European summit, von der Leyen met on Thursday afternoon with representatives of Copa-Cogeca, the main agricultural trade union in the EU, the latter announced.

The meeting was attended by the Prime Ministers of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as delegates of Belgian agricultural organizations, adds Copa-Cogeca on X (formerly Twitter).

“The EU must offer concrete and pragmatic answers, far from ideology and dogmatism,” insists this organization, which the day before said in a letter to the Commission that “economic burdens and bureaucracy are stifling farmers.”

The European Commission’s announcement comes after thousands of demonstrators from several countries and around 1,200 tractors took to the streets of Brussels on Thursday to express the anger of farmers across Europe.

Among the reasons for their irritation are European rules that are considered too complex, applied unevenly from one country to another, and procedures that are considered too cumbersome for applying for aid or responding to overly demanding controls.

French Agriculture Minister Marc Fenault himself called for a quick “simplification” of CAP procedures on Wednesday, assuring that Paris is ready “together with other European countries” to “take the initiative” on this issue.

“We cannot have such a complex and unclear CAP, sometimes both for our administrations and for our farmers,” he said after a meeting with the European Commissioner for Agriculture in Brussels.

Climate change sometimes makes it impossible to meet the timetable set by the rules, he said, also citing “necessary exemptions, forms and certificates”, even though satellite monitoring “can simplify procedures”.

The EU will introduce control over the import of Ukrainian grain

Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that Ukrainian grain imports will also be covered by a “strengthened protective mechanism” at the European level, which will allow “intervention” in case of destabilization of prices in the European Union, reports AFP.

The French president also asked the European Commission to offer “concrete and tangible simplifications by the end of February” for farmers who have been protesting for several days in France and other European countries.