CAP aid will begin to penalize non-compliance with human and labor rights from 2024, retaining a percentage of the European funds allocated to each country
MEPs have been able to hear first-hand this week from Keltouma Amagrout. She is a mediator, she works in Huelva Hostsand knows first-hand what happens with the shanty settlements where a good part of the immigrant labor force lives. works in the red fruit greenhouses. From his experiences he wanted to highlight the talk with an immigrant, from whom a fire in the shanties where he lived took everything away from him. “When she came back from work, he had nothing,” the mediator said this Wednesday at the European Parliament in Brussels. She tried to encourage him, urging him to leave the shack and try to find accommodation in the nearest town. He “very frustrated”“from Ghana or Guinea,” opened many of his eyes and gave him an explanation that Keltouma will not forget: “We are like a tractor. They want to see us in the countryside but not in the town. “You don’t see a tractor passing through the town, not even parked there, they don’t want us there.”
From the hand of the MEP of IU Manuel Pinedathe organization Andalusia Welcomes This week they have sent the results of the report “Settlements 2022. Consequences of discrimination in the settlements of Huelva and the region of Níjar (Almería)” to the European Commissioner for Employment. This study provides revealing data on the situation of discrimination experienced by these workers, many of them housed in substandard housing, without registeringwithout access to electricity or water, and without compliance with labor legislation, even being in a regular situation, with papers and a contract. “They live worse than cattle”lamented the Malaga MEP.
Below the agreement
Angel Madero, coordinator of the Andalucía Acoge report, put emphasis on the extremely difficult reality that thousands of farm workers live “for fruit and vegetables to reach the homes of Europe.” Around the 30%according to the sample analyzed, is in an administrative situation regular and all of these people are equally denied access to such basic services. He 80% of the people who participated in this study admit not having access to running and drinking water and a 85% they do not have access to electricity. 60% of the people consulted have difficulty obtaining a medical appointment.
Among the most significant data of this research is that more than 95% of people say they do not have vacations and in many cases (67% in Huelva and 22% in Níjar) I don’t even rest within the working day. Days that can be 7 days a week and 10 hours a day, and even so they do not ensure that they earn what the agreement establishes: 94%, in Huelva, and 88%, in Níjar, they charge below the daily wage.
Fines in EU aid
The solutions indicated by the NGO Andalucía Acoge plans to redouble labor inspection and on the table was also the importance of meeting the requirement that aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) be linked to compliance with human and labor rights. The total amount of direct CAP aid for Spain in the 2023 campaign amounts to 4,875 million euros.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will link the collection of aid to compliance with labor rules in Spain from 2024. The CAP that came into force this year includes the “social conditionality” of the subsidies, will be linked to compliance with a list of labor standards; Otherwise, it will be penalized with cuts in subsidies from 3% to 100% in Spain next year. This social condition will be mandatory in 2025 throughout the European Union (EU).
Last October, the Andalusian Government approved the advance of aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of 2023, which Andalusian farmers and ranchers already charge. Total, 202,124 producers will receive this advance of European subsidies, something more than 785 million euros, an amount that corresponds to 70% of the aid that the European Union grants in advance, as Andalusia requested, to professionals in the Andalusian field in the current year. TO Huelva correspond 24.9 million eurosto be distributed among 5,847 CAP recipients. Almeria will have at your disposal 13.3 million euros for 5,054 agricultural producers.
Agricultural organizations regret that there is “criminalizing” the image of the farmer, because, they say, there are already agreements and tools that guarantee good practices. But the data provided by Andalucía Acoge a la EU would indicate that they are not fulfilled as they should.
invisible women
From Huelva Acoge, Emma Gonzalez, who also participated in the delegation that went to Brussels, asked that labor inspections in the field be intensified and that inspectors be trained to also detect cases of sexual abuse and trafficking in women. “There are a total of 39 shanty towns scattered throughout the province of Huelva, most located within seven kilometers of an urban centre. “This makes women even more invisible and makes them an even more vulnerable victim in cases of assault or gender violence,” she noted. “They are very scared”he explained.
It is not the first time that the situation of illegal settlements in Andalusia reaches the community capital. In March of this year, IU registered with the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament an initiative for the European institutions to “take urgent measures.”
In the province of Huelva it is estimated that more than 3,000 people in about 40 settlements. In Almería they are counted 69 settlements that welcome between 5,000 and 7,000 people. The European Parliament announced this week that it will investigate the conditions of these agricultural workers, following a complaint filed by United Left, Almería Hosts and the Multicultural Association of Mazagón. 75% of the residents in settlements are men around 32 years old, mainly sub-Saharan and Moroccan, with more than three years of residence in Spain and, more than half, in an irregular situation.