Good morning everyone.

My greetings and thanks go to President Giansanti and all of Confagricoltura for the invitation to this Assembly, which is being held on a particularly important day for the agricultural and agri-food sector. The Agriculture and Fisheries Council is in fact meeting today in Brussels, to discuss the most effective responses to the crisis affecting the industry. Italy will be represented by Minister Lollobrigida, who is there with you and whom I also wish to greet. He will be presenting a very concrete document, reiterating a number of key concepts.

The first of these concepts is that agriculture is not an enemy of the environment and the ecological transition; in fact, quite the opposite is true. If there is anyone who loves the land, who wants to look after it and works every day to safeguard it, protecting identity and traditions at the same time, then it is farmers. This is why, ever since coming to office, the Government has been fighting in Europe against all the ideological diktats that would affect European agricultural production, putting at risk the concept of food sovereignty that remains an essential focus for us.

We have made Italy’s voice heard on many issues and there has been a gradual change in approach.  I am thinking for example of the regulations regarding emissions, packaging, pesticides, mandatory rotation or the compulsory setting aside of land. Of course, not all these issues are resolved, but I believe there is an evident change in gear, and common sense is beginning to prevail.

The other priority we are called upon to address is the revision of the common agricultural policy. The CAP we are dealing with was envisioned before the pandemic and before the conflict in Ukraine, in a completely different world to the one we have today. The structure we inherited therefore requires profound reform, to enable the CAP to once again pursue the economic and social strategic objectives set out in the European Treaties: on the one hand, to ensure secure, quality food supplies for our citizens and, on the other, to guarantee adequate living standards for those who produce that food.

These goals can only be reached by supporting farmers’ incomes. This necessarily involves another decisive battle, which is the one against unfair competition regarding products coming from third nations that do not respect the same health, environmental and social regulations that our farmers and fishers are obliged to comply with. This is why Italy will voice farmers’ demands and ask the European Commission to negotiate agreements with non-EU countries with greater incisiveness and determination, and to establish stricter rules as well as precise mutual standards. 

In this context, the aspect of controls is crucial, and at national level we have been at the forefront since day one. We have established an inter-force steering committee and defined an extraordinary plan of controls for 2024. This will allow us to broaden the range of supply chains that are subject to checks, thereby increasing the number of officers assigned to critical areas, such as the ports where goods arrive.

Without farmers, there is no food. Without food, there is no future. We have heard those words a lot in recent weeks as well as reading them on many placards and banners.
Some have said and written that farmers are protesting in order to defend their privileges. I instead believe that farmers have every right to make their voices heard and ask for what any worker asks for: to have fair remuneration for the work they do and a system of rules that defends and supports that work. Is that a privilege? I do not believe it is a privilege; it is a common sense, concrete and real battle.

Agriculture is a strategic sector, and we believe it must be the focus not just of national policies (our vision and commitment on this can be seen through the many measures we have adopted over the last 16 months), but of European policies too.
This is why we successfully asked for agriculture to be included on the agenda of the next European Council meeting in March. During that meeting, we will continue to support the key importance of this industry that is vital not just for our economy but also for our identity and our future. As always, this is something we intend to do by working with representative organisations, and so thanks once again to Confagricoltura, and I wish you all the best with your work.

[Courtesy translation]