Farmer subsidies in Poland at European level says PiS head

Poland's farmer subsidies have already reached the European level or even slightly exceeded the European average, the leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party has said.

"We have achieved what we have been fighting for with regard to 97 percent of Polish farms," Jarosław Kaczyński told a Congress for Polish Farmers in Przysucha, central Poland, on Sunday.

"Farmer subsidies in Poland have already been at the European level or even slightly exceeded the European average," Kaczyński said, adding that his party had also done more in other fields, like, for instance, "the protection of Polish land ownership."

Referring to various subsidies, which are being obtained by farmers, Kaczyński said that they had been increased and would be raised in the future in order "to finally achieve full equality between rural areas and cities."

Admitting that this goal had not yet been achieved, Kaczyński said that Poland had got closer to this aim owing to huge investment projects, most of which were being implemented in rural areas.

Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk said that, next year, the government wanted to introduce a 20-percent increase to fuel subsidies for farmers and to offer these subsidies to pig producers. He also said that it was PiS which was the first to introduce fuel subsidies for farmers from the state budget in 2006.