The Council EU approved measures to halt farmer protests

During the meeting on February 26, the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries supported the European Commission's decision to allow a temporary deviation from the Eurostandard GAEC-8 (requirement regarding the percentage of land that must be fallow).

The meeting also repealed the Euroregulation on regulating the sustainable use of pesticides (SUR) and established additional safeguards to protect the internal market when extending the duty-free regime with Ukraine.

Among other additional steps:

• Relaxation of GAEC-1 (which sets requirements for pasture area) for farmers transitioning from livestock to crop cultivation; they will not need to convert arable land into pastures or fields.
• Revision of GAEC-6 regarding the methods that can be used for soil cover, taking into account regional peculiarities.
• Revision of the quality of the AMS satellite monitoring system, which will reduce the number of monitoring visits to farms by half in certain cases.
• Publication of clarifications on the use of the force majeure concept, allowing farmers to avoid penalties for non-compliance with the requirements of the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the case of severe droughts or floods.
• Survey of farmers to identify the main sources of their dissatisfaction.

Ministers emphasized the need to review EU basic acts in the field of agriculture, particularly to ensure a balance between trade agreements and support for the entry of Ukrainian agro-exports into traditional markets beyond the EU.