2023-08-04 14:13:32
Cem Ozdemir
The agriculture ministers from seven federal states have written to the federal agriculture minister.
(Photo: IMAGO/photothek)
Berlin The cuts in subsidies for rural areas planned by the federal cabinet are categorically rejected by seven federal states. “The federal states see the constitutional foundations of the GAK (joint task of agricultural structure and coastal protection) shaken with the planned cuts by the federal government,” says a letter from the agriculture ministers of Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein to Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens). The letter is available from the German Press Agency in Munich.
“The cuts proposed by the federal cabinet are unacceptable for the federal states and could massively damage confidence in the reliability of politics,” the letter continues. The seven states call on Özdemir to prevent the cuts during further deliberations in the Bundestag. Otherwise, there is a risk of “significant slumps” in the area of rural development, and multi-year projects would have to be granted a freeze on approvals.
In the federal budget draft for 2023, the funding is still set at 1.13 billion euros, in the draft for 2024 there are only funds of 840 million. However, the plans have not yet been finally decided, and the Bundestag will only deal with the draft budget after the parliamentary summer break.
“The federal government contradicts its own coalition agreement,” said Bavaria’s Minister of Agriculture Michaela Kaniber (CSU). Instead of more money for rural areas or organic farming, she is now planning massive cuts in federal funds.
Özdemir would have been better off giving up his “half-baked and questionable federal programs and continuing to actively support the federal states in their measures for rural areas”. So he lets the countries, the rural areas and the organic farming in the lurch.
More: 27 percent higher prices, only ten percent higher costs – these sectors have hit the ground running
#federal #states #shaken #austerity #plans #rural #areas