Farmers uncharacteristically quiet in reaction to EU cuts

Farmers’ organisations were uncharacteristically quiet in their reaction to the first ever reduction in the EU’s seven-year budget, and the 11% slashing of the CAP budget (although EU rural organisation said it is a 15% reduction).

ICMSA president John Comer condemned the “complacent acceptance” of the reductions, which he said will take critically needed funds out of already hard hit rural areas.

As Hungarian economist and agricultural policy expert Attila Jambor said, “Europe’s age of austerity is finally about to catch up with the Common Agricultural Policy. For the first time in its history, the seemingly inexorable upwards rise in the cost of the CAP will now be put into reverse.”