Purpose of the meeting

The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen contacts and bring closer together positions for more effective implementation of the Central European countries’ interests on the European Union forum.

The Ministers of Agriculture stressed that the meeting was held at a tough time when Ukraine, attacked by Russia, is heroically fighting for its sovereignty. Given the war in the east, the issues of ensuring food security in Europe and adapting EU strategies to new challenges are of crucial importance.

Strategic Plans

The issues related to the process of adopting and assessing Strategic Plans of the Common Agricultural Policy were the main topic of discussion. Minister Krzysztof Ciecióra emphasised that Poland was one of the first countries to submit a complete draft of the Strategic Plan to the European Commission.

– "We hope that the European Commission's official comments will be exhaustive and comprehensive and will not go beyond the previously notified issues so as not to delay the procedure for adopting the document," the Polish Deputy Minister stressed.

He underlined that Poland's priority for support under the Strategic Plan is small and medium-sized farms. Pursuing the objective of a fairer distribution of income support, Poland intends to implement complementary redistributive income support.

Undersecretary of State Krzysztof Ciecióra also informed about the start of work on the Plan's implementation system.

– "We are making efforts to ensure that the system is transparent and straightforward for beneficiaries and that advisory services are prepared to provide appropriate services to farmers," the Polish representative said.

Joint Declaration

In the conclusion of the talks on the subject, the Ministers signed a Joint Declaration of the Visegrad Group and Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia on the contribution of their CAP Strategic Plans to fairer and greener European agriculture. The document contains several essential postulates and is a vital shared voice of the countries in our region in the further discussion on the EU forum.

Carbon farming

The second topic of the Ministers' discussions was sustainable carbon cycles and the role of agriculture and soil protection in achieving climate neutrality goals.

– "Poland recognises the potential of carbon farming and its associated objectives of increasing carbon sequestration in agricultural systems and maintaining already stored carbon in soils. However, we believe that farmers should be adequately rewarded for these activities," said Undersecretary of State Krzysztof Ciecióra during the meeting.

Moreover, he emphasised the importance of joint actions carried out within research and innovation with the participation of all stakeholders, namely, farmers, representatives of science, research institutes and agricultural advisory. He informed that some practices included in carbon farming have already been planned in the Polish Strategic Plan of the CAP 2023-2027.

Short supply chains

The Ministers of Agriculture discussed sustainable food systems and short supply chains.

– "Many food safety regulations containing facilitations for farmers producing food have been introduced in Poland on a small and medium scale," stressed Deputy Minister Ciecióra.

He also provided information about tax preferences and national regulations that oblige municipalities to designate places on Fridays and Saturdays for farmers to trade in products produced on their farms.

In conclusion, the Ministers adopted conclusions containing the most significant issues on sustainable food systems within the regional cooperation.