Brussels has approved funding for Hungarian farmers for the loss of 4,295 tonnes of fruit and vegetable in exports due to the Russian embargo, Hungary’s farm ministry said on Wednesday.
The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it was opening a €165 million additional emergency fund to provide compensation for farmers affected by Russian import bans, news agency MTI reports. The previous EU farming support programme ran from 18 August to 10 September, when it was suspended because the full budget of €125 million had already been claimed. Hungary had already indicated earlier on that more than €125 million would be necessary to compensate Hungarian farmers.
Hungary’s agriculture and regional development office (MVH) said earlier that altogether 226 preliminary applications for aid had been submitted in the country. Hungarian applicants, however, had not had access to compensation under the previous EU farming support programme, the MVH told MTI.
In the next six years, Hungary’s food industry will have access to EU funds of HUF300 billion (€962 million), Miklós Zsolt Kis, Hungarian state secretary for rural development said earlier this week. The money will go towards developing small and medium-sized firms in the sector in the period until 2020.
© 2014 European Supermarket Magazine – Europe’s grocery retail magazine, for all your breaking supermarket, convenience-store and FMCG news. Article written by László Juhász.
