SaS: Matecna Should Start Meeting Demands of Protesting Farmers

Bratislava, February 25 (TASR) - Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriela Matecna (Slovak National Party/SNS) should start meeting the demands of protesting farmers and those of MEPs, representatives of the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party told a news conference on Monday dedicated to last week's farmers' protest in Bratislava. The news conference was held by SaS leader Richard Sulik, MP Alojz Baranik and Jarmila Halgasova, who is in charge of agriculture matters in the party. "Since the very beginning we've been calling for transparency in all processes, including those regarding the allocation of direct payments. I'd like to urge minister Matecna to start meeting farmers' demands, as it's not true that they've been met. For example, the demand concerning adopting a rule that a direct payment should only be provided to an entity that proves its legal entitlement to the land, or ones aimed at avoiding subjective project assessments and at immediately publishing the names of successful projects," said Halgasova. SaS also urged the agriculture minister to start meeting MEPs' demands as listed in their final report. "We call on the minister to prepare a strategic document on land reparcelling via achieving consensus across the entire political spectrum, as it should start being implemented after 2020. I'd like to confirm on behalf of SaS that we're ready for a professional discussion," stressed Halgasova. Sulik sees three main problems for farmers in Slovakia. The first two are the fragmentation of land and EU subsidies that are lower than those received by developed countries even after 15 years of EU membership. "The third one is very low added value of production per hectare of land," stated the SaS leader. ko/df