The Generalitat will allocate €20 million to direct aid for the pig sector

BarcelonaThe Catalan government announced on Wednesday a €10 million financial aid package for the pig farming sector, which could be increased by another €10 million in the near future. The aim of this package is to begin providing direct aid to farms and companies affected by African swine fever (ASF). Regarding the impact the outbreak will have on the Catalan pig farming and livestock sector as a whole, Ordeig said it is still too early to make calculations, as it will depend on how the epidemic evolves in the coming days. "At the moment we have no figures, but as we have them we will see how we proceed," he emphasized. The Catalan government is also working with the European Commission and the Spanish government to coordinate other lines of economic support for the sector.

The €10 million package is in addition to the opening—announced this Tuesday—of a €50 million credit line from the Catalan Finance Institute (ICF) for companies in the pork sector that need urgent financial assistance due to the impact of the outbreak. This line is available, but "as of noon [Wednesday], no applications had yet been received," stated the Minister of Economy, Alícia Romero, after a meeting between her ministry and the Departments of Agriculture and Business at the Catalan Parliament. Both Ordeig and Romero will appear next week before the Parliament's Agriculture Committee to report on the state of the epidemic.

In the business sector, the Aragonese meat company Grupo Jorge laid off 300 temporary workers hired through a temporary employment agency, according to a statement from the Workers' Commissions (CCOO) union, which warned that thousands of jobs are "at risk" due to the pandemic. CCOO requested an "urgent" meeting with the Catalan government and the Spanish government and demands that, in cases where companies lay off workers, temporary workforce reduction plans (ERTEs) be activated. Furthermore, the union is calling on Grupo Jorge's management to "sit down and negotiate."

Meanwhile, the Spanish government continues negotiating with non-EU countries to ease the ban on pork exports. For now, Argentina and the United Kingdom have followed China's lead and eased restrictions on the entry of pork products, provided they meet certain temperature and salting requirements and—like sales to EU member states—are produced outside the 20-kilometer radius of the point where the first infected wild boars were detected in Colls. In total, some 130 export applications remain to be processed out of the more than 200 that were halted when the Ministry of Agriculture declared the presence of the virus in Spain.

Possible changes in the affected area

The European Commission must decide in the coming hours whether or not to expand the 20-kilometer radius of restrictions imposed due to African swine fever (ASF), which affects 64 municipalities in the Barcelona area. "A delegation from the European Commission [...] must decide which regionalization applies to the whole of Europe, whether it is the 20-kilometer radius or a provincial one," Ordeig explained in the Catalan Parliament. This comes after Tuesday's announcement. The number of positive cases of the disease will rise to nine. Among wild boars.

Initially, the European Commission was expected to announce whether the affected area would be modified this Wednesday, but Commission sources have indicated to ARA that the decision will ultimately be announced the following day, Thursday, reports from Brussels. Gerard FagedaIn the event of changes to the perimeter, the EU Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed must ratify them – or modify them, if it deems it appropriate – at its next meeting, which will take place on December 16 and 17.

The perimeter affected by the restrictions will determine which areas can be exported from to other European countries and will affect any regionalization that non-EU countries may implement. According to Commission sources speaking to ARA, although Wednesday's decision is purely sanitary, it will directly affect the list of territories with which the sector can trade. It should be noted that the ban on exports from outside the EU initially affects the entire national territory, and that the Ministry of Agriculture must negotiate regionalization on a country-by-country basis.

Meanwhile, Ordeig confirmed that the positive cases announced on Tuesday remain unchanged. "We still have nine positive cases," he said Wednesday in statements from the Parliament, which he considered positive because, five days after the announcement of the first case of African swine fever (ASF), all cases have so far been found in the central area of the outbreak and have been wild boars, without affecting domestic pigs or any pig farms.

Ordeig calls for "unity"

With the outbreak of the crisis, the Catalan government established a two-pronged restriction zone to try to control the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak. The first zone, extending 6 kilometers, coincides with the area where the infected wild boars have been found and affects 12 towns, where access to the natural environment has been prohibited. The same has been done for the entire Collserola Park. Within the second zone, extending 20 kilometers, leisure activities, hunting, activities related to biodiversity, and any activities that interfere with wild boar population control and biosecurity measures are restricted.

While awaiting the Commission's decision, Ordeig has called for "unity" among political parties and stated that a "serious image" of crisis management must be projected. "The image we must project is one of rigor, seriousness, determination, responsibility, and awareness of what is at stake," he said. Regarding the criticism from political parties that President Salvador Illa has not returned from Mexico, where he is on an official trip, to address the crisis, Ordeig asserted that "this country is very fortunate to have the leading expert in health crises" that the government could have.

Furthermore, the government of the Community of Madrid sent a team of seven forest rangers to Collserola on Wednesday to help control African swine fever (ASF), a measure that the Minister of the Presidency of the Madrid regional government, Miguel Ángel García Martín, justified by the fact that Madrid is "a supportive region" that always "lends a hand when other regions are in need."