Unprecedented in Romania: Agriculture Minister calls for EU Commissioner’s resignation, criticizes EU’s ‘Green’ Rules forcing farmers to fallow land and rotate crops

Romanian Agriculture Minister, Florin Barbu (PSD), under significant pressure from farmers to address issues with new EU ‘green’ regulations, announced that he would request the resignation of the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, during the Council of Ministers.

He made the statement in a discussion with farmers in Târgu Mureș, before the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Brussels, where he will again request exemptions from environmental standards targeting crop rotation (GAEC 7) and the condition to leave 4% of the farm area uncultivated (GAEC 8), as reported by Agerpres.

This is the first time since joining the EU that a senior Romanian official has publicly called for the resignation of a European Commissioner due to controversial regulations. The GAEC 7 and 8 environmental standards, imposed as part of the European Commission’s Green Deal, have been strongly opposed by farmers in several European countries. Farmers accuse the European Commission of imposing these measures without considering the significant financial impact on them.

„Romania, through the Council of Ministers, has requested exemptions from GAEC 7 and 8 of the European Union Regulation. The support I had from 15 states, including Germany and France, regarding the exemptions from GAEC 7 and 8 and not respecting the vote given in the Council of Ministers by 70% will make me, tomorrow, in the Council of Ministers, and I take responsibility for this, in my capacity as minister, to publicly ask for the Commissioner’s resignation for not respecting a vote given by 15 states. I am going with this mandate in the Council of Ministers, tomorrow, if we do not resolve the GAEC 7 and 8 exemption issue, because one thing was not understood and I tried to explain it to the Commissioner and everyone, that we are not asking for anything. We are in a period of war, we are affected, the five states, by the conflict that was caused by Russia against Ukraine,” declared the Minister of Agriculture, quoted by Agerpres.

„I believe that the decision to exempt from GAEC 7 and GAEC 8 rules should be taken responsibly, considering the impact on food security, farmers’ income, usual agricultural practices, and environmental protection. It is mandatory for the Commission to take into account both immediate needs and the long-term consequences on agriculture and the environment,” stated Florin Barbu.

The removal of GAEC 7 and 8 standards was one of the main demands of farmers who protested in the streets. They were dissatisfied with both the regulations themselves and the fact that Minister Barbu had promised them in December that if the EU did not approve their postponement, he would eliminate them through an internal decision.

On December 12, he declared that he could solve the problem of the two environmental regulations through „internal norms”, but this did not happen.

„Romania is considering protecting Romanian farmers in 2024, through internal regulatory norms, as were foreseen by the Commission for the year 2023 in the Regulation establishing certain derogations from the application of GAEC standards. Romania has not made unilateral decisions until now, without consulting the European Commission!” said Florin Barbu, the Minister of Agriculture, during his official intervention at the EU Council (called the AGRIFISH Council), according to Agrointeligenta.ro.

Romania raised the issue of derogations as early as the Council of July 25, 2023, and subsequently, another 15 member states (Poland, France, Slovakia, Latvia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Italy, Malta, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Estonia, Sweden, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) supported the need for their application. Minister Florin Barbu stated that Romania is considering protecting Romanian farmers in 2024, through internal regulatory norms, as foreseen by the Commission for 2023 in the Regulation regarding the establishment of certain derogations from the application of GAEC standards.

Indeed, at each meeting of the AGRIFISH Council, the minister supported these derogations, and in July and December, they were included as initiatives from Romania in the Miscellaneous section (AOB).

Since the end of August 2023, the Minister of Agriculture has sent DG AGRI an impact analysis regarding the need to extend the derogations for 2024, considering the need for predictability of farmers, in the difficult context in which they carry out their activity, due to the effects of the war in Ukraine, extreme weather phenomena, and inflation which has generated hard-to-bear price increases for inputs.

According to MADR, during the meeting, ministers will discuss, based on information provided by the Commission, aspects related to trade in the field of agriculture, and the Council will organize a public debate on the topic of strategic dialogue on the future of agriculture in Europe, launched by the Commission.

The Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation (AAC) asked the authorities on Sunday to undertake all possible steps to convince the European Commission and member states to support trade measures for agricultural products from Ukraine and to grant the derogation in 2024 from standards 7 and 8 regarding good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAEC).

AAC also came with a series of proposals, namely the creation and implementation, by April 30, 2024, of a European system to ensure that all transports of Ukrainian agricultural products are identified before entering the EU (through transit, normal and/or special/temporary import), weighed at entry and exit, introduced into the system, where they should be transparently available at any time, to any interested person to guarantee that the Ukrainian products reach their respective destinations and do not remain on the route or are diverted from the initial route/destination, even partially in quantity.

Another measure proposed by members of the Alliance targets the introduction of import thresholds (normal and special situations of temporary imports, specific to fairs, exhibitions) for any agricultural goods subject to trade, based on the annual or quarterly average for the combined years 2021 and 2022. Any products imported above this threshold should be exported outside the EU and, therefore, approved only for transit through the EU territory accompanied by electronic seals, tracked in real-time via GPS, without deviations from the route or unjustified stops.

Last but not least, Romanian farmers are calling for the alerting of European authorities and the automatic activation of the safeguard clause at the national level in case of violations of applicable legislation by owners and transporters of agricultural products from any member state.