The desktop of incoming agriculture minister features both bulky financing plans and looming fines from Europe over milk.
Padar returning to put out the fire
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Ivari Padar (SDE – soc dems) is exiting the European Parliament to start working as minister of agriculture, on April 7th. The job, for him, is familiar – the man first launched into it in 1999. As then, he again kicks into gear by a Veterinary Act amendment, but in a situation altogether different. 15 years ago, law was being created in Estonia; now, it’s just being polished. From his first Agri Minister Era, Mr Padar has gotten a skeleton freshly unearthed and stuck into his closet – the division of Tartu Agro lands, as covered by Postimees last Friday.
What do you think of the accusation that 15 years ago you broke the law nationalising Tartu Agro lands?
Should it beassumed that I have committed a crime, they will have recourse to the courts. I have nothing else to comment. It is even difficult for me to comment, as I do not know what exactly was investigated and what was decided. I have not even read the committee’s final version of the decision. Should Helir-Valdor Seeder who convened the committee think there’s reason enough to sue me, let him proceed.
A person wanting his lands back said you’re unfit to be minister ...
Opinions surely vary. There are those who think that I’m fir and there are those that think otherwise. Who has ever seen a politician heartily loved by the entire spectre?
What are your feelings, stepping into the office again?
Very positive, definitely. No doubt the ministry has changed a lot over the years, but I do have the bigger picture. Agriculture and the country life have been my personal field of interest for 49 years. Seeing I’m the son of a chief agronomist. It would have been best for the outgoing minister to have been able to finish up the big issues that are still up, such as the rural development plan and application of direct farming aid, but in politics there are other rules and from time to time logic will not work.
Beholding the situation as it was 15 years ago as I became minister, and today, then... back in those days the worry was whether Estonian agriculture will manage to feed the Estonian people. That problem no longer exists. Now, we are talking about a very strong agricultural sector.
What will be your initial topics to tackle?
The first fire to put out is the issue of the possible violation of milk quota and the fine. Whether we’ll manage to mitigate the situation so as to make the sanctions more reasonable for us.
Secondly, the trade side of things, regarding Estonian entrepreneurs whose export was shut down by Russia and who have struggled for months to meet the requirements. Now they’re waiting what the Russian reaction will be.
But a fire also needs to be put out with the rural development plan, as its coordination has been stalled between ministries due to the governmental change; and now that it has been basically agreed what Estonian cofinancing will be, quick decisions need to be made regarding how we will adjust the development plan. All this will need to be accomplished during April, largely.
How do you agree with the ideology of the financing documents?
No final decision has been taken yet, neither regarding the rural development plan nor the direct aid. All in all, we are talking about €1.9bn. On the one hand, an analysis has been made at the ministry of agriculture, on the other hand there have been the meetings with social partners. One thing is clear: It can’t be that enters a new minister, salutes everybody and says that these partners have not been the right partners, let’s take others and start from the beginning.
Most of these social partners are people I also know, and obviously I will have to continue from what has been done during the two years. I cannot be that on the twelfth hour the work is dismantled. Neither is there any reason for that.
There some nuances that need to be reviewed, and then to make it to the commission as soon as possible. In any case, the aim is that it could be used, full blast, in 2015. Decisions regarding agricultural direct aid need to be made by August 1st.
While in Europe, have you kept yourself updated with these materials?
Not in all the details, but if we’re talking about work in the European Parliament, what I was doing there ... never has there been such a thing, I guess, that the things that are agreed upon in Europe, that a MEP goes home to cook it up. But, we will manage.
What do you think of the worries of big producers that during the new budget framework, they will be getting less direct aid?
Why direct aid will not be growing initially and will may-be even shrink during the first years … By the European Union, the hectares are reckoned at 862,000. Right now, new declarations are coming in and possibly it will hit between 950,000 and a million hectares. That means that extra hectares will be added and the sum per hectare will then diminish. But we need to consider that the hectares aren’t coming from outer space somewhere, it’s our own people declaring more land.
Over the last period, Estonia paid about €250m extra on top of the direct aid. Currently, the European Union accepts for us to pay €140m on top; even so, it hasn’t been put into the budget right now. This is rather a topic for times after the 2015 elections, if and how much extra we could pay.
These two things pull the hectare aid down. Hectares are being added, and there is no state cofinancing.
What to tell the producers, then?
I’d really love to hold the line that no big expectations are pumped up on promises that are impossible to keep. This is how it is today, and the more reason thus to be better and more effective at treating the rural life on the development i.e. investments side. And that’s not bad, having clarity regarding the next seven years.
What to do with the Russian market?
Where proposals have been made to improve our food inspection, this needs to be taken seriously. Every importing country has the right to say that their consumers require such and such guarantees, so that’s that. We settle these issues first, and then we may say whether this was politics or not.
But that’s the way with Russia: sometimes we have trade with them, and sometimes we don’t. Doing business with certain regions spells business risk. Every entrepreneur need to manage his risks. It surely cannot be assumed that tax payers pay for the risks.
There are the emergency situations, like with pig farmers right now. But then the pig farmers also need to think where to risk and where not to risk. Three years ago, before the live pigs export was shut down, I was over at the farmers and they were having a ball. Trucks were showing up, pigs were flying. Already then, one got the gut feeling that life just can’t be that rosy. The rest is history.