Brussels, 15/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Speaking in Munich on Monday 14 March at a conference on simplifying the common agricultural policy (CAP), Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloº said that the target of a 25% reduction in the administrative burden on farms by 2012 will be comfortably exceeded: red tape will fall by 36%.
He said that simplification must, indeed, be just that. There must be no attempt to bring in political objectives by the back door. Among the instruments for the future he mentioned: - the work to be done to make the CAP easier to read - for example, by improving the structure of the legislative texts; - greening of CAP aid. “The easiest thing is to do nothing. But that is just not possible. We have to make sure that farmers all work harder to combat climate change and move up a level on sustainable use of natural resources.” Building the greening into the first pillar (direct aid and market spending) is the simplest and most certain way of having both economic and environmental leverage, the commissioner said.
Simplifying the current CAP. There has already been simplification. “For example, for checks, we have to be absolutely meticulous to ensure good management of public money.” Cioloº acknowledged that special effort still had to be made on conditionality (where aid is granted if certain criteria are met) “so that requirements are concrete and easily checked. We will go from three regulations to only one.” Life also has to be made simpler for small farmers, “by making sure that they are not overloaded with red tape”.
Joint administrations-farmers group. The Commission wanted to involve national administrations and farmers directly, by setting up a working group which has already met three times and which is organising a conference for 21 March. This working group has been tasked with: - monitoring the reform of the CAP; - providing assistance in the drafting of legislative texts. The group has already examined a number of key points of the reform: the definition of “active farmer”, greening, definition of “eligible land”, specific aid for small farmers, aligning management and control rules between the two pillars, rural development programmes and, in particular, the Leader approach. The group will continue to carry out its work at all stages of the preparation of policies, including the decisive phase of application and implementation of the reform.
In conclusion, Cioloº said that “simplicity is a constant effort” and that it was important that the proposals on the CAP after 2013 were “simple, manageable and able to be checked”. (L.C./transl.rt)