Farmers will protest against the subsidy system in Prague
Updates: 08.06.2022 00:57
Released: 08.06.2022, 00:36
Prague – Thousands of farmers are due to move to Prague today to express their dissatisfaction with the government’s decision to measure more money from subsidies to small farmers at the expense of medium-sized and larger companies. They hold a protest meeting in the Lucerna Palace in the morning, and a procession to the government office is scheduled for noon. Praguers expect traffic restrictions, including the main routes around Wenceslas Square.
The event is organized by representatives of the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic, the Agricultural Union of the Czech Republic and trade unions. Representatives of the governing coalition are also invited, and the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Marian Jurečka (KDU-ČSL) will take part. He will represent the Minister of Agriculture Zdeněk Nekula (KDU-ČSL), who is in covid isolation.
The government finally agreed on the form of subsidies for the period between 2023 and 2027 at the end of May. Since the beginning of the year, the chamber and the union have criticized the decision to change the setting of the so-called redistribution payment, which farmers receive on the first 150 hectares of land. For the next grant period, it will be 23 percent of the amount for direct payments, originally planned ten percent. The government decided on the change in January, which already provoked farmers’ protests.
Today’s event will start at 09:30 with a speech by the President of the Agrarian Chamber, Jan Doležal. Speeches by representatives of other unions or unions will follow. The organizers want to broadcast a performance from Lucerna on the screen on Wenceslas Square, from where a procession to Straka’s Academy is to take place in the afternoon. A protest rally was then to be held there from about 1.30 pm to 3.30 pm.
The protest is criticized by the Association of Private Agriculture of the Czech Republic, which mainly represents small farmers. According to the chairman Jaroslav Šebek, the chamber and the union “have long defended only billion-dollar subsidies, mostly for a few of the largest agribusiness entities that have nothing to do with normal agriculture.”