BUDAPEST, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Minister of Agriculture Sandor Fazekas said here Wednesday that his country is against the change of the European Union's common agricultural policy (CAP).
"If there were no agricultural subsidies, the price of quality food would go up to the skies," Fazekas said on Hungarian public television M1. "We have to remember that the ultimate benefiters of the subsidies are the end users who buy the food," he added.
CAP, the agricultural policy of the EU, was introduced in 1962 and has undergone several changes to reduce the cost. It has been criticized on the grounds of its cost and its environmental and humanitarian impacts.
The European Commission is in the process of elaborating the guidelines of the new CAP 2020. "Hence, diplomatic movements around EU agricultural subsidies are now lively," Fazekas explained.
Hungary's interest is to keep the actual model of CAP of the EU, which consists of two pillars: the direct agricultural funds and the rural development funds.
Hungary is a net recipient of EU agricultural subsidies and it is against the interest of the country to cut the funds, as projected by the European Commission, according to media reports from Brussels.
"It is in Hungary's primary interest to maintain the current or at least a very similar agricultural support system in the next EU budget cycle," Fazekas declared. "The present aid scheme serves farmers and consumers alike," he concluded.
