On Monday, November 17th, at the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting in Brussels (Belgium) member states will discuss the planned post-2027 area-based payment support under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the risks to food security. Latvia will be represented at the Council meeting by the State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Ģirts Krūmiņš.
This will be the second round of discussions on the CAP post 2027. The discussion will concentrate primarily on food security and how the targeted use of CAP area-based payments can strengthen this security. Given the strategic importance of agriculture and the food industry, the creation of reserves of agricultural products may play an important role in mitigating food-supply risks. At the same time, the formation of agricultural and food reserves depends directly on the availability of funding. Therefore, Latvia will once again call at the meeting not to reduce CAP support, or at least to maintain it at its current level. Likewise – in addition to area-based support – CAP investment support must be accessible to everyone, including the food-processing sector, which is part of the food supply chain, since such support is essential for producing high-quality food.
The meeting will also include an exchange of views on fishing quotas for 2026 and on certain stocks for 2027 and 2028 in EU waters and for EU vessels operating in non-EU waters. Negotiations on many stocks are still ongoing, so the planned fishing quotas for all fishing resources have not yet been published. Agreement on the quotas is expected to be reached at the December meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council.