Brussels, 25/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 25 June, the European Commission approved revised and updated criteria under which the member states can support agriculture, forestry and rural areas, in line with EU state aid rules.
The Commission has adopted a new regulation on block exemptions in the agricultural sector and new guidelines for state aid in the agriculture and forestry sectors and rural areas for 2014-2020. This regulation will make it possible to grant certain categories of state aid to the agriculture and forestry sectors and to rural areas without prior notification to the Commission.
The guidelines aim to define the general criteria which the Commission will use when assessing the compatibility of the aid with the single market. The new rules will apply from 1 July 2014. Dacian Ciolos, European Commissioner for Agriculture, said that “these new rules should improve efficiency on state aid issues by speeding up approval procedures and cutting red tape for public authorities dealing with state aids in the agriculture sector”. “These improvements will therefore enable potential beneficiaries to benefit from state aid more quickly”, he added.
The new rules are as follows:
Allowing many more block exemptions by widening the scope of the agricultural block exemption regulation. For example, it will be possible in future for member states to grant aid to the forestry sector and small enterprises in rural areas without having to go through lengthy notification and authorisation procedures.
Widening the scope of the guidelines. For example, the member states will be able to grant aid to compensate for damage caused by protected animals and to purchase breeding animals for the improvement of the genetic quality of the herd.
One-stop approach. Member states will only have to go through one administrative procedure vis-à-vis the Commission (i.e. a Rural Development Programme approval procedure, while merely informing the Commission of their block exemptions for the purpose of the state aid aspects) and, as far as possible, member states will deal only with one Commission service when seeking clearance for their rural development programmes.
Reducing administrative burdens. The new rules proposed by the Commission significantly reduce the administrative burden for public authorities when dealing with state aid in the agriculture sector and speed up procedures. Therefore, potential beneficiaries will also be able to profit from the respective planned aid more rapidly. (LC)