The European Commission will release €68 million from the agricultural emergency reserve to help Spanish farmers affected by damages in the field caused by the drought in 2024 and other weather events such as the disaster generated by the DANA on 29 October last year that devastated mainly Valencia.
Among the most affected sectors, Brussels lists wine production, olive production, fruits and vegetables, and livestock; although it does not provide further details on the impact in each area.
The Twenty-Seven gave this Wednesday the green light to the Brussels proposal, which now must formalize the allocation and will come into force “without delay” once the measure is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). After that, national authorities will be responsible for distributing the funds among the affected, no later than September 2025.
Besides the urgent aid for Spain, the European Executive has also committed payments from this reserve to producers affected by natural disasters in Hungary (€16.2 million), Croatia (€6.7 million), Latvia (€4.2 million) and Cyprus (€3.5 million).
In the case of Spain, the Community services explain that the country suffered “a deficit of precipitation and extreme heat during the summer of 2024,” which caused a drought and then, at the end of October and beginning of November, “the heavy storms caused by the DANA phenomenon brought exceptionally intense rainfall and devastating floods,” including the disaster that left numerous deaths and became “the worst catastrophe” to strike the Valencian Community this century.
Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen has stated that the support announced this Wednesday is proof of European solidarity with farmers. “We cannot change what has already happened, but we can learn from it and be better prepared,” the commissioner reasoned, who has advocated for “strengthening risk management in the agricultural sector for farmers across the EU, while ensuring that our response remains rapid and targeted in case of a crisis.”
