Canaries farmers unite on one platform.

THEY CLAIM THE PAYMENT OF 23 MILLIONS OF EUROS OF POSEI FROM PREVIOUS YEARS.

Fifty livestock associations in the Canary Islands have formed a platform to demand payment of nearly 23 million euros of POSEI aid that - they assure- owe from 2009 the central and regional governments to this sector, that employs 12.000 people on the islands.

Representatives of these organizations have announced this platform that also demands a change in the POSEI aid distribution system. (Specific Options Program for Remoteness and Insularity) and the support of the administrations so that livestock farming represents a way out for unemployed young people from construction.

The insular secretary of the COAG agricultural union in Gran Canaria, Juan Hernandez, has stated that both the central and regional governments have systematically failed to comply with 2009 the payment of the additional aid that corresponds to them from the POSEI, that affects more than 3.000 petitioners and is seriously damaging the viability of the farms and employment.

The platform requires, thus, to the Canary Islands Government to establish a negotiation table in which a calendar is presented in which the payment of the aid that is owed to them is established and to present the proposal to reform the POSEI program to 2015 that the Canary Islands must send to the European Commission before 31 of July.

This proposal must include the same percentage of community co-financing and State aid for all support lines., to end unequal treatment, both in the payment system and in the time in which it is made effective, because the ranchers are the last to receive this economic support, Hernandez indicated.

As highlighted in the document they have signed, The paralysis of the POSEI reform represents a “blow” for the ranchers of the islands and increases the feeling that, from the Canarian and state administration, “a group whose social importance is being despised, economic, environmental and cultural is undeniable”.