Europe changes course on the common agricultural policy: more funds, stop cuts and 10 billion more for Italy. A political victory for the Meloni government
The European Union changes its mind, mends its ways. After the backtracking on the elusive Green Deal, after years of announced cuts and reforms perceived as punitive by the agricultural world, yesterday 6 January the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced an increase of 45 billion euros for the Common Agricultural Policy starting from 2028. Of this additional endowment, as many as 10 billion are destined for Italywhich confirms itself as one of the main beneficiaries of the turning point.
The decision comes after months of tensions between the Eurogovernment and European farmersexasperated by increasingly stringent environmental regulations and a financial framework that risked drastically reducing aid to the primary sector.
The Italian government’s line was rewarded
For Palazzo Chigi, Brussels’ “repentance” is a political victory. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni openly claimed the change of course: «I welcome with satisfaction the European Commission’s decision to modify, as requested by Italy, the proposal for the new multiannual financial framework to make available, as early as 2028, an additional 45 billion euros for the common agricultural policy. Together with the additional resources allocated last November to meet the requests of the European Parliament, this initiative not only achieves the objective of confirming the current level of financing for the future as wellas requested by Italian and European farmers, but it makes additional resources available.”
The result demonstrates for the umpteenth time, despite the malevolent owls of the left continuing to affirm the opposite against all evidence, that Italy matters more and more in the European and international panorama: «It is about a positive and significant step forward in the negotiations that will lead to the new EU budget and which demonstrates that the common sense line in support of European agriculture carried out with determination by the Italian government is increasingly listened to in Brussels”.
More resources for Italian growers
To do the math is the Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida. Italy, he explains, would have had to settle for 31 billion in the Commission’s first proposal. Now, however, the allocation rises to 40.7 billion for the period 2028-2034. The 22% cut is canceled and, indeed, the resources even exceed those of the 2021-2027 cycle.
According to Lollobrigida, this means giving farmers the tools to guarantee food sovereignty, land protection and decent incomes, restoring centrality to a sector that in recent years had been considered marginal.
A Europe that returns to its origins
Further signs of satisfaction come from the majority. For the president of the Senate Agriculture Commission, Luca De Carlothe increase in funds demonstrates that Europe is rediscovering its founding values thanks to the action of Italy, which led the “no” front to cuts to the CAP. More resources also mean more investments in innovation, sustainability and competitiveness for the Italian agri-food sector: «The increase in resources allocated to agriculture is not only the signal of a Europe that is rediscovering its founding values thanks to the political action of Italy, a leading nation at continental level in the fight against the downward revision of the CAP, but it is also a support for that path of growth, valorisation, innovation and modernization of the national primary sector in which the Meloni government has invested since the first day of its inauguration».
A different climate for the agreement with Mercosur
It’s not a detail that the EU Agriculture Council, convened in Brussels to also discuss the delicate free trade agreement with Mercosurnow takes place in a less tense context. With more funds on the table, European farmers are looking at global challenges with greater confidence. After years of policies perceived as hostile, the CAP returns to being an instrument of protection and development. For Italy, which has made agriculture a strategic axis, it is a significant victory.
And the left, rather than being satisfied with the improvement in national agricultural fortunes, is currently silent. He should perhaps remain silent more often, rather than babble nonsense against a government that, day after day, is giving Italy back an international credibility that eleven years of left-wing governments (which were not elected by the citizens) had taken away from it.
