While the budget for the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy has decreased by some 11 percent, Hungary will be receiving 12.3 billion euros in agriculture funding within the next financial framework for 2014-2020, compared to 10.4 billion euros in the current period.

Hungary’s share of the CAP budget has therefore increased from 2.36 percent to 3.19 percent for the upcoming financial period.

The total funding received by Hungary in the upcoming years is to increase by 1.9 billion euros, some 500 billion forints compared to the current financial period 2007-2013. Funding levels will therefore remain close to the European Union average. It is important to note that the amount of funding that in fact reaches Hungarian farmers is, similarly to the available budget, significantly influenced by the forint-euro exchange rate related to each actual payment, and to changes in the exchange rate, which could mean further increases in forint payments.

It is difficult to understand the socialist MSZP party’s negative attitude towards small-scale producers and young farmers, as it seems to begrudge them the funding that has been reorganised in their favour. We would like to state that the accentuated support of young farmers, who are the future of Hungarian agriculture, and enabling small-scale producers to access funding in as simple a manner as possible, are priority issues for the Government.

The world of numbers is shaky ground for the opposition party; they were unable even to successfully calculate the level of rural development funding from the European Union budget for the period 2007-2013. The figure is not 5 billion, but in fact 3.86 billion euros, and according to preliminary calculations this number is expected to be around 3.45 billion euros for the period 2014-2020. When viewed relative to one hectare, the level of rural development funding of 98 euros/ha is still well above the European Union average (82 euros/ha). This is added to by 25% national joint financing, the level of which will remain unchanged.

In addition to the above, the Ministry of Rural Development plans to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the Common Strategic Framework (CSF), which will enable monies from the cohesion fund to also be used for rural development purposes in future, and accordingly significantly increase prospects for their financing.