On 5 December, Jacques Blanc (FR/EPP), mayor of La
Canourge and the European Committee of the Regions'
rapporteur on pastoralism, spoke at a hearing on
wolves held in Brussels by the European Parliament.
He called for the Member States to have more
resources and more flexibility to manage their
populations of large carnivores.
Maintaining pastoralism is vital for farming across the
EU, in order to keep rural areas alive. Unfortunately,
the situation is worrying for pastoralism in many
European countries where populations of large
carnivores are growing. The losses caused by large
predators are very significant and are rising.
The European Committee of the Regions is calling on the
Commission to assess the need to revise the Habitat
Directive on the basis of the next State of Nature in
the EU Report in 2020. The CoR is also calling for the
biodiversity strategy to be based on a new specific
fund for species conservation. "The fund should cover
compensation for damage caused by large carnivores, the
cost of which is rising sharply and taking up an
increasing proportion of EAFRD funds at a time when the
budget is being significantly reduced", stressed
Jacques Blanc. "In France, the National Institute for
Agricultural Research estimates the annual cost of
livestock protection and compensation at EUR 80 000 per
wolf. In Spain, compensation costs have risen from EUR
40 000 in 2014 to EUR 300 000 in 2019. This exponential
cost of predation is no longer tenable."
Contact:
Hélène Moraut
Tel. +32 22822161
helene.moraut
@cor.europa.eu