A majority of EU member states on Saturday came together to oppose EU budget cuts and demand that the Irish presidency protect farm funding.
In a letter to Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, 17 EU leaders called for agriculture to be given priority during negotiations ahead of the new EU budget.
Leaders of Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, the Czech Republic, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia as well as Greek Cypriot administrations joined the initiative led by Romanian President Nicusor Dan and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
While recognising the challenges ahead of the bloc, in the letter, the leaders stressed that they must not come at the expense of treaty-based policies, which remain the "backbone" of European integration and themselves contribute to addressing these new challenges.
"Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy are long-standing policies, but their objectives are as relevant as ever," the letter noted.
"We therefore believe that the overall funding for Cohesion Policy and the CAP must be preserved in the next MFF (Multiannual Financial Framework)," the letter added.
The leaders noted that further reductions would not modernise the EU budget, but rather "only weaken" it and risk undermining public support for the European project.
"We will carefully consider the adjustments to the proposals that the Commission has committed to present," the letter added.
