The accession of Ukraine to the EU and its agricultural power would lead to the "death" of family farming, warned the German Farmers' Union in the face of growing concerns about the future direction of the EU's agricultural subsidy program.

Warnings

Following the European Commission's recommendation to start official accession talks with Ukraine, Joachim Rukwied, the president of the German Farmers' Association (DBV), warned of the consequences for the agricultural sector.

Accession "would lead to the disappearance of family farming in Europe," he said at a press conference on the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the EU on Wednesday (November 15).

This must "remain in the background of all political discussions," he added.

Rukwied emphasized Ukraine's large agricultural sector and the fact that the average farm in the country is often much larger than in the EU.

Admission would mean "the integration into the EU of an agricultural sector with completely different structures, up to farms of several hundred thousand hectares," he stressed.

In this context, he argued that a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that includes Ukraine is "not feasible" unless it is at the expense of farms in current EU countries.

A position paper for the next CAP funding period, from 2028 to 2034, presented by the association on Wednesday, was based on the current state of the EU and not on an expanded one, according to Rukwied—even though the EU has mentioned a provisional target to be ready for accession by 2030.

European Commission recommends accession talks with Ukraine, Moldova

In a push for the bloc's enlargement process, the European Commission recommended on Wednesday (November 8) opening accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova—as well as eventually with Bosnia at a much later stage—once they finalize the implementation of key outstanding reforms.

Indeed, there is a broad consensus among political representatives and organizations that the CAP could not continue in its current form if Ukraine were to join.

In particular, the so-called direct payments, paid to farms per hectare of agricultural land, would likely not be financially viable for Ukraine's large areas.

However, unlike the DBV, the German Ministry of Agriculture, for example, has made efforts to use the future accession as an opportunity to fundamentally reform the CAP and move away from largely unconditional area-based payments.

Several German federal states, as well as environmental organizations and representatives of organic and small-scale agriculture, have also expressed support for preparing EU agricultural funds for Ukraine's accession.

Meanwhile, the government in Kiev argues that Ukraine's accession would strengthen the EU's agricultural sector and make the Union a global player in agriculture.

Furthermore, a recent study by the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies concluded that the Ukrainian agricultural sector would not become a "bottomless pit" for the CAP, as it is competitive without large subsidies—but at the same time, in certain respects, "too competitive" compared to other EU countries.

Ukraine's accession to the EU will trigger a rewriting of the CAP, says Kiev official

Evaluating the impact of Ukraine's accession on EU agricultural subsidies according to current criteria is not a relevant exercise, as Kiev's accession to the EU will likely bring an end to the Common Agricultural Policy as we know it today, according to Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Economy Taras Kachka.

"In fact, due to fertile black soil and cheap labor, Ukrainian agriculture produces so efficiently that it represents serious competition for many EU countries, as shown by the dispute over Ukrainian grain exports to Poland and Hungary," the study said.

Rukwied also warned that Ukraine would join the EU "as a country whose agriculture produces well below our standards, for example, in the use of pesticides" and therefore would unfairly compete with farms in other EU countries.

In reality, however, Ukraine will have to transpose all EU standards into national law before being able to join the Union.