BRUSSELS: European agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan has warned London that EU subsidies will end in 2020 because of Brexit and it will then be up to the British government to support its farmers.

Hogan, who is Ireland’s commissioner, told AFP in an interview on Wednesday that there would be no extension to the farm payments that have been agreed under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy.

“I have been assuring farmers in the UK that our payments will continue as they are now until 2020,” Hogan said in Brussels.

“Then it’s a matter for the British government, on the assumption that the negotiations are concluded, that they will be able to fund all the various farming measures that they wish... from their own resources.”

The EU subsidies are legally bound to continue until 2020 despite the fact that British Prime Minister Theresa May’s timetable sees the country leaving the EU in early 2019.—AFP