The acting Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, has met, at the headquarters of the Ministry, together with the Secretary General of Agriculture and Food, Fernando Miranda, with the Minister of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development of the Board of Castilla-La Mancha, Francisco Martínez Arroyo and with the president of the Regulatory Council of the Denomination of Origin "Manchego Cheese", Antonio Martínez Blasco.
During the meeting, the situation created by the imposition of tariffs by the United States on certain agri-food products, including Manchego Cheese, has been analyzed. The minister has expressed the firmness of the Government in the face of this decision that he considers unfair and contrary to multilateralism and international trade based on rules.
Planas recalled that the Government maintains permanent contact with the European Commission, which is the one that represents the EU countries before the WTO (World Trade Organization), to defend the interests of the Spanish agri-food sector.
In this context, this problem was addressed in the Council of Agriculture Ministers last November with the Commission, at the request of Spain and other Member States. Specifically, the implementation of market correction and promotion mechanisms was requested, such as the mobilization of community financial resources to mitigate the effects that tariffs may have on the producer sector, and the activation of measures to promote CAP in third countries for the products affected.
PDO Manchego cheese
The territorial area covered by the PDO Manchego Cheese is 4,419,763 hectares, which constitutes the natural region of La Mancha, distributed in the provinces of Albacete (957,269 ha, 21.66% of the region) Ciudad Real (1,465,549 ha , 33.16% of the region), Cuenca (978.078 ha, 22.13% of the region) and Toledo (1.018.867 ha, 23, 05% of the region).
The total production of protected cheese is 15,425 tons, which represents 54% of the cheeses marketed with PDO. Of this production, 63.8% is exported (38.3% third countries and 25.5% EU), and 36.2% to the national market. Virtually all of the PDO cheeses that are exported are Manchego Cheese, whose main destinations are Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands, the US being the main destination of this product outside the EU, to which approximately one third of its sales are destined totals