Poland, speaking also on behalf of the Hungarian, Slovak, Lithuanian, Bulgarian and Romanian delegations, drew the attention of the Council in Brussels on Tuesday 18 July to the issue of land availability for farmers in the European Union. Practices such as speculation and excessive concentration of farmland are making it ever more difficult to find available land (see EUROPE 11750).
In particular, Poland emphasised the need to consider access to land as an overriding public interest and to defend national legislations aimed at improving the operation of national markets of agriculture land trade.
Several agriculture ministers, including those of Germany, Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Croatia, Greece and Lithuania, said they share Poland’s concerns and backed its requests. The European Commission was open to cooperation with member states to find solutions to the problem in full respect of the internal market freedoms. The Commission recently called for transitional measures on the acquisition of land in Croatia to be kept in place (see EUROPE 11784). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)