Commissioner Hogan meets Romanian MPs, assures Romania of EC's support to fight African swine fever

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the African swine fever epidemics were among the topics tackled by European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan with the representatives of the joint parliamentary Committees for European and Agriculture Affairs of the Romanian legislature. 

The chairwoman of the Senate's Committee for European Affairs Gabriela Cretu on Thursday headed the meeting of the joint parliamentary committees for European and Agriculture Affairs with the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, with Phil Hogan, the main topics being the CAP reform and the files to be managed by the future Presidency of Romania to the Council of the European Union, the situation of the African swine fever's epidemics, the unfair trade practices as well as the Group of Action for Rural Africa, a release by the Senate reads. 

Commissioner Phil Hogan assured Romania of the European Commission's support in its fight against the African swine fever, by implementing certain surveillance and detection measures of the virus, veterinary services and research. 

We'll continue to back the Agriculture Ministry and Romania's farmers concerning the surveillance measures, the veterinary services, research. We'll try to provide a vaccine workable in the future. As many as 10 million euro will be allocated in 2019 for the research of this objective, the European official said, according to the source. 

As for other financial measures, related to the ceiling and help through redistribution of the payments for the small and medium-sized farms, Hogan stressed that any proposals from the member states, Romania included, will be discussed, so as to know how the farms could be helped to stay in business. The EC has in view a new loan backing package, with the support of the European Investments Bank and the EU funds, in general, the source adds. 

In her speech, Gabriela Cretu appreciated Phil Hogan's optimism with regard to the negotiation of the future Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), and his will to reach a final agreement in March 2019, during Romania's Presidency of the EU Council, and said that the first European regulations kit referring to the MFF has already been examined within the European Affairs Committee, and those referring to the CAP are due to be examined next week. 

In addition, senator Cretu wanted to underline that "beyond the economic, social and environment protection role, the farmers also play an important political role. 
"The CAP affects and implicates many citizens, in Central and Eastern Europe, in particular. The way the new CAP is built and the fairness of the funds' distribution can counteract the increasing Euro-skepticism wave. Domestically, we do our best to help the farmers be independent, so that they don't depend on the big banks. Even yesterday we have examined a new draft law referring to the mutual insurance companies that can support the farmers," Gabriela Cretu said, as quoted by the Senate's release. 

At the end, Cretu appealed to the EC representative to join Romania's efforts on both the short term in stopping the African swine fever's epidemics, and on the medium term, in defending the CAP project.