The Confederation of Farmers of Portugal (CAP) today accused the Government of “abandoning those who helped it” and says that trust between the sector and the executive was broken in the absence of responses to the crisis they are going through.
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24/09/2026
by
Lusa
Nthe editorial of the last magazine of CAP, the secretary-general of this confederation, Luís Mira, accused the government of forgetting and abandoning “who helped him”, pointing out that the executive of Luís Montenegro came to power “with explicit support” of the sector.
“[...] Trust in this government has been broken,” he said.
The CAP Secretary-General said that the fires in Germany, France, Ireland, Hungary, Belgium and some countries in Northern Europe forced Brussels to submit a proposal for a European integrated management mechanism for forest fire prevention and combat.
This initiative, as you have pointed out, requires Member States to create a national structure to take advantage of the knowledge that will be made available by the European Union.
For Luís Mira, Portugal cannot continue without an intervention body for fires and other disasters.
To this is added the crisis generated by the price of fuels, which began in March.
In September, the government announced a 10-cent support, with retroactives at the end of June.
“ While Portugal shows its lack of interest, Spain is supporting its farmers with packages of measures since March, reinforced in the April-June quarter and, again in August-September”, he stressed.
On the other hand, CAP highlighted, the Spanish executive added €650 million to fertilizers, below the €20 million granted by Portugal.
“ If we want to compare it with the last socialist government – which CAP has so much criticized – it has allocated EUR 180 million,” he lamented.
The Secretary-General of the CAP also criticised the fact that Portugal did not use the funds made available by the European Union in two mechanisms, in which part of the budget is entirely Community, but allows each Member State to complete up to 200% of the amount allocated by the European Union.
“ For the first time, in almost four decades of CAP [Common Agricultural Policy] in the country, Portugal will not participate with the national amount at the limit of the regulation, thus placing us at another disadvantage to all European farmers,” he said.
CAP called its board of presidents for an extraordinary meeting, at its headquarters, next Monday, in the face of the lack of “strong support” to help the sector cope with the increase in cost with production factors.
This maximum advisory body brings together the presidents of the associations of agricultural, forestry and livestock sectors.