Klaus Iohannis: "The transit roads sections of Solidarity do not affect agriculture in Romania"

The transit roads sections of Solidarity do not affect agriculture in Romania, President Klaus Iohannis said yesterday from Brussels, before the extraordinary summit of the European Council, after which the 27 EU member states approved the allocation of 50 billion euros to support Ukraine.

President Iohannis declared: "Romanian farmers have essentially the same problems as farmers in France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy. It's about how the subsidies are allocated, about how much they can use from the arable land, and so on, in the context where these discussions were basically concluded in 2020, so it's nothing new. But you must know that since this was decided, every year until now there have been exemptions, and now would be the first year when there are no exemptions and farmers are feeling these things. We will see how the Commission can come up with some improvement procedures. The transit roads sections of Solidarity do not affect agriculture in Romania and I want to emphasize this very clearly. We opened these colors because we are aware that Ukraine needs this help and Romania can offer this help without being detrimental to Romanian farmers. This autumn (ed. - autumn of 2023), you remember, even when I was at the United Nations, we negotiated solutions, the Government implemented them here and no products were sold that pass through Romania. So, the Romanian market was not affected by products that only transit through Romania. These things are known and must be acknowledged. If necessary, then, of course, the Government will institute stronger controls to see that it is not traded, only transited, but that is a problem that has already been solved. The rest, what can be cultivated, how to use pesticides, and so on, here are more complicated technical discussions and I think some solutions are being found".

Klaus Iohannis also said that he does not think that a European Council decision is needed to facilitate some measures for farmers, given that the extraordinary summit took place in Brussels besieged by farmers who are protesting across Europe against the measures of the Green Deal to be applied in agriculture.

Moreover, regarding the president's statement, the farmers who protested for almost a month in our country complained precisely about the fact that part of the Ukrainian grain remained in Romania, even though it should have been in transit. Following the protests, the representatives of the Romanian Customs Authority, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and ANAF stated that they will tighten controls and monitoring of the transport of agricultural products from Ukraine, and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu stated that, from the data he has, since October no shipment of Ukrainian grain was no longer unloaded in our country.