President Lennart Meri received the representatives of the Agricultural Producers' Central Union this afternoon in Kadriorg. The representatives presented their demands for changes in the current Estonian agricultural policy to the Head of State.

The President said that obviously the current situation in agriculture is known to everybody in Estonia. As he pointed out, the difficult situation in agriculture is further aggravated by the complicated economic year and by the fact that the concept of the future of the Estonian agriculture is lacking.

The President thanked the representatives of agricultural producers for paying due attention to transparency of the negotiations between Estonia and the European Union, because so far the information has concerned the movement of documents rather than the benefit or loss that the decisions might bring to the future of the Estonian farmers.

The President also said that the prospects of the Estonian villages for the next 15 years (until Estonia has acceded to the European Union) should be discussed more widely. The issues of education, integration process, or textbooks by Estonian authors to Russian schools, have been left unattended, because the Government is mostly worried about this week and the one following it. It is important to do everything in our power for our children to have a securer, better and happier life, the President added.

The President also pointed out that agricultural and social issues must be solved separately. Social support is necessary for small farmsteads (e.g. old ladies with a single cow), because this problem would exhaust itself in the next 15-20 years.


Press Service of the Office of the President
Kadriorg, October 13, 1998

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