Following the official meeting between Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orbán and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, the agriculture ministers of Hungary and Poland also held bilateral talks in the Parliament building. The main topics of the meeting between Sándor Fazekas and Stanislaw Kalemba included GMO policy, the domestic distribution system for Common Agricultural Policy funding, supporting the tobacco industry, opportunities for cooperation provided by the European Innovation Partnership, and cooperation between national rural networks.

Mr. Kalemba said that the Polish Government has declared its commitment to GMO-free foods in 2008, and the implementation of regulations continues to be supervised regularly. Mr. Fazekas welcomed the Polish standpoint, indicating that Hungary had never supported the use of GM seeds and will be opposing the authorisation of the latest GM maize strain at talks that are currently underway in Brussels. The negotiating partners agreed that the member states of the European Union should have the right to decide on the use of GMO crops within their own spheres of authority.

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Hungary and Poland fought to achieve common goals on several points during the debate concerning the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Both country have decided to make use of the opportunity to extend the Simple Area Payment System (SAPS) until 2020. During the course of the reform process, both Ministries also argued in favour of providing additional funding to young farmers. In view of the fact that tobacco production is an important job-creating sector in both countries, opportunities for providing further funding must also be examined.

One of the priority topics of the meeting was cooperation between research institutes, national rural networks and agricultural science organisations. In the interests of the most efficient possible application of rural development funding and the exploitation of the opportunities provided by the European Innovation Partnership programme, which is a new element in rural development policy, there is a serious need for the traditionally close cooperation between Polish and Hungarian experts and local action groups.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)