The impact that the ability to sell abroad has on the competitiveness of an economy like Spain’s is evident.
However, we tend to underestimate the importance of our companies being able to compete in our neighborhood as well as they search.
This has been happening in Spain since the opening to new international markets, first with the entry into the European Union and then with other free trade agreements such as Mercosur, coincides with internal regulations that complicate and inhibit production and that require the brake of some strategic sectors.
In this case, agriculture.
We make high demands on our farmers who come to compete in the open market (we make sure they have enough opportunities), but we condemn them to it with the excessive regulation of the European regulatory framework, bureaucratic and sometimes even more fear of reality.
The scenario is confusing. Because those who appear day by day seem to want to say thank you for this new market that requires them to give more yes… while they continue to be drawn into the web of bureaucratic araña tejida from Brussels.
Politics moves between different tractors, while a group of farmers participates in a movement in Seville against the agreement with Mercosur.
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Nadie is not aware of this market liberalization process with access to thousands of new consumers and a reduction in the amount of oranges, This should be a positive step for any manufacturer.
I am sure that there will be sectors such as industry, technology or services, that this opening will be a way to fight the slowdown of the European internal market.
The problem is not so much the free market (not open trade).
The problem is the Spanish field’s proposal for strict and unfair over-regulation that prevents them from competing. Not only in new markets, but also in those that have been operating there for years.
Regulatory regulation in many cases undermines reality and challenges the industry.
Those who want to set up a non-existent battle between farmers and the free market.
Because the battle we all need to pay attention to and come back to was between the Spanish camp and the European bureaucrats.
Ignoring the reality, value and weight of this sector, these bureaucrats are indulging in legislation against our interests and preventing a key economic sector from developing its work on a level playing field in the global market.
The success of our farmers does not come from the opening of new markets, but from the introduction in the European Union Extremely demanding standards related to the environment, animal protection or labor legislation.
Standards that are unable to satisfy imported products and products that remain competitive.
Farmers during the “No Mercosur” rally. To defend the food supply. For a stronger CAP.
I repeat that the enemy is not free trade, but a cruel combination of external openness and internal over-regulation that reduces the competitiveness of our manufacturers.
And this is the regulation where we need to focus on nourishing the industry.
Let’s turn this moment of media attention on the Spanish field into the rallying cry that Europe needs to respond and contain inertial hacia and bureaucratic gigantism in this field, as well as in many other fields (industrial policy, energy, artificial intelligence).
Gigantism, which is the enemy of citizenship. A citizenship whose development and prosperity must be the sole motivation of the European project.
Exijamos in the EU favorable to free trade and limiting interventionism.
We have institutions at the service of our citizens and in this case our producers.
An institution that works to create opportunities and not to impose stones on people in a sector that in the last few years, and when we are experiencing a pandemic, has proven to be essential for our society.
An opening speech cannot do justice to the fact that it is dedicated to our products.
Spain must also take the lead by demanding a deep reform from the European Union aimed at facilitating the work in the field and avoiding the confusion between consumer protection (obvious and necessary) and constant damage to the producer.
The solution is not simple, because it is necessary to combine and compensate complete realizations.
But it is because of this that the debate needs to lower its brakes and gain altitude in order to transform itself into a respectable debate that will take place Simply solutions, guaranteed for products and consumers and long-lasting.
The revision of the Cargas Regulation in the European Union is a necessity, which must be approached ambitiously, so that no single demand is addressed more than producers, than those who provide the necessary guarantees to consumers.
The problem is neither Mercosur nor Spanish farmers. It is much easier to compare the field with open tourism who are working to review the excessive regulatory drift that has been absent at the heart of European bureaucracy for years.
Let’s go to Europe and change the noise. And we must review the regulatory abuses that occur in the primary sector so that this key manufacturing sector in Spain can compete on a level playing field inside and outside our borders.
*** José Manuel Villegas is the partner director of RV+.
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