“Will ease red tape, to help make sector more self-sustainable”
On the vote-catching trail today, Portugal’s prime minister Luís Montenegro has “promised” to ease bureaucratic rules applied to Portuguese farmers and make the sector more self-sustainable, gradually reducing its trade deficit. But he insisted there could be “no protectionism” and that there must be an agreement in place with Mercosur (the Latin American trading bloc).
These pledges came in direct conversation with farmers in the western region and then in a brief speech afterwards, when Luís Montenegro and his political caravan visited the Adega da Vermelha winery in Cadaval, north of Lisbon.
According to Lusa, “the prime minister said that a year ago Portugal had a trade deficit in agriculture of around €5 billion, but that this deficit had already fallen to €4.4 billion, a reduction of €600 million.
“The way forward, he stressed, is to continue to reduce the deficit in order to make Portugal self-sustainable from an agricultural point of view. Investment and development in agriculture (…) are fundamental policies for the social and territorial cohesion of the country”.
But at the same time, Mr Montenegro “took the opportunity to distance himself from the position of some farmers who are against the implementation of the trade agreement between the European Union and Mercosur”, says Lusa.
“According to the prime minister, the conclusion of the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur is the solution to “demand reciprocity” in terms of compliance with environmental and health control rules – and not the other way around.
He even left a warning: “We must not be afraid of this. Those who want to shut themselves away in a shell to hypothetically protect their interests will wake up to find their shelves full. They will see the other’s shelves completely empty”.
But several farmers complained about excessive national bureaucracy and the burden of European environmental and health rules imposed on producers.
“We need to simplify and remove complexity from the relationship between farmers, producers and breeders and the public administration”, Montenegro agreed. “We need rules at national and European level that are equivalent to those of other markets with which we compete in the sale of our products.”
Source material: LUSA
