Brussels, 23/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 20 June, the European Commission published detailed new rules on reforming the common agricultural policy (CAP).
These include 1) a delegated act supplementing Regulation 1307/2013 establishing direct payment rules for farmers (general measures applying to direct payments, the basic payment system, a single surface area payment system, payments for farmers using farming methods that are beneficial to the climate and the environment, payments for young farmers starting work, optional conditional aid, aid for cotton-growers and member states' reporting requirements); 2) a delegated act complementing Regulation 1306/2013 on the integrated administration and control system (IACS) and conditions for refusal or withdrawal of payments and administrative penalties applicable to direct payments, rural development support and cross compliance; and 3) an implementing regulation laying down application measures for Regulation 1307/2013 “direct payments” (first allocation of rights to payment, activation and transfer of rights to payment, national reserves or regional reserves, certification system for the 'greening' of aid, assessment of conditional aid and more besides).
The new rules give member states all they need to decide how to introduce the various aspects of the new direct payment system under the CAP at national or regional level on 1 January 2015 and this should help farmers plan what to grow in the future. The Commission also published a working document on implementation by the member states of a number of areas of the direct payment regulation. This working document clarifies a number of issues which have been raised during the discussions on the delegated act for direct payments.
In Luxembourg on 16 June, EU28 farm ministers discussed how they were planning to introduce the changed CAP direct payment system. Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said that the flexibility provided by the new CAP provided an opportunity to cope better with environmental and other problems in each area but said the flexibly needed to be used to achieve common objectives in an open, simplified and well-managed manner and the European Commission will be analysing implementation of the reforms in the member states in this light. (LC)