Jorge Martínez Antolín and Ana Alós ask the Government to hire transport companies to facilitate the mobility of workers
The Popular Parliamentary Group in the Senate has presented a motion, for debate in the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in which it asks the Government to open the borders for those workers who come from other countries to collect fruits and vegetables. , ensuring health safety at all times.
The initiative, signed by the senators of Palencia and Huesca, Jorge Martínez Antolín and Ana Alós, respectively, also requests that transport companies be hired to facilitate the mobility of these workers to work areas, complying with the distancing measures established the alarm status.
As the popular senators explain in the text of the motion, Spain is the largest fruit and vegetable exporter in the European Union and, therefore, it needs a lot of labor. During the next few months, the agricultural sector requires a volume of workers that ranges between 100,000 and 150,000.
Jorge Martínez Antolín and Ana Alós recall that only in the Ebro Valley about 50,000 workers are needed to collect stone fruit and, in a similar situation, there is Valle del Jerte (cherries), Alicante (medlar), Guadalajara (asparagus), Valencia (potatoes and onions) or the provinces of Granada, Córdoba and Cuenca (garlic).
"The demand for labor is usually covered, in addition to the temporary workers in the area, by people from Romania and Morocco, but the closure of the borders as a result of the restrictions imposed to stop the COVID-19 pandemic, has made it impossible to hire foreigners "in origin", as in previous years ", affirm the senators of the Popular Group.
Likewise, they demand the creation of an employment exchange with workers trained in this type of collection that guarantee reliability and work performance; and decree interprovincial mobility for these workers, so that they can move to carry out urgent tasks on farms such as green picking and pruning, ensuring health security.
AID FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION
Regarding aid from the European Union, Martínez Antolín and Ana Alós consider that such aid must be restructured so that the red fruit sector can receive percentages similar to those received by other agricultural sectors.
In addition, they ask that the temporary repeal of Regulation (EU) No. 1308/2013, applicable to organizations of fruit and vegetable producers, be promoted within the European Union, in order to have more flexibility in the implementation of operational programs.
Finally, the motion presented by the senators of the PP urges the Executive to propose the amendment of article 1 of the Delegated Regulation (EU) 2020/592 of the Commission of April 30, 2020, which establishes exceptional measures of a character that authorize exceptions to certain provisions of Regulation (EU) No. 1308/2013, of the European Parliament and of the Council, to face the market disturbance caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the fruit and vegetables sector, as well as in the wine sector, and thus be able to include both the general production expenses and the exceptional expenses resulting from COVID-19.
