At 71 years old, this Valencian Graduate in Law and Labor and Safety Inspectoris one of the very rare ministers who can boast of remaining in Pedro Sánchez’s Government since Rajoy’s motion of censure in 2018. Luis Planas repeats as Minister of Agriculture. His best virtue is that, always showing a technical profile (although he has been in active politics for several decades, in fact he was even a councilor of the Junta of Andalusia on two occasions), he has not gotten into practically any puddles nor has he been the protagonist of any major controversies, beyond some specific criticism, without leaving big headlines, of course, against his former ministerial portfolio colleague in the last legislature, Alberto Garzón, when He attacked the quality of Spanish meat.
That does not mean that for the sector, represented by the agricultural organizationshas been a great minister, especially because they have accused him of hiding too much and not fighting the legal battle – not the oratory one – against the then Government partner, Podemos, and its controversial environmental laws in recent years. This drift has thrown the countryside, united by all its sensibilities, into the streets and has caused great constant demonstrations and demonstrations of farmers, ranchers, hunters and, in general, from the entire rural area, without exception, very upset at what they considered constant attacks on their activity; also those starring the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, who has always had the labor management of agricultural producers and their workers in her sights, multiplying inspections and imposing million-dollar sanctions.
Furthermore, added to this is the government’s controversial management when it comes to defending the field interests in the preparation (it is already being applied this year) of the aid of the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC), which has demanded very rigid requirements from an ecological point of view (the ‘green’ standards of mandatory compliance on agricultural farms) in order to receive subsidies, which have also suffered significant cuts, around 15% of the budget former.
For this legislature, Plan will have another important challenge because the Food Chain Law, approved in theory to balance prices in the intermediate steps between the farmer and the consumer, has not had any effectiveness. The markets continue to skyrocket and prices for producers have not grown as they should, and even more so with the exorbitant inflation of raw materials. The climatic conditions have not helped the minister in his management with the long periods of drought that have shaken agricultural activity in recent years, which has multiplied instability and prices, such as the absolutely exorbitant price of olive oil. And no specific measures have been approved to solve it.
Ambassador Permanent Representative of Spain to the European Union for two years, and deputy in Brussels for seven, Plan was one of the ministers who in his day firmly defended that the amnesty for those convicted of the process was not possible: “It is not contemplated in the Constitution“and added that this figure “was raised when we changed from a dictatorial regime such as Francoism to a democracy, but we have been a fully democratic regime for more than 40 years, therefore this figure does not fit in the Spanish Constitution.”