Brussels, 26/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 24 November, the Commission adopted a regulation allowing member states to reimburse farmers €868.2 million, which had been deducted from the direct payments for 2014.
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1259/2014 on the reimbursement of the appropriations carried over from financial year 2014 was published on Wednesday 26 November in the EU Official Journal.
In financial year 2014, direct aids to farmers were reduced by €868 million by applying the financial discipline mechanism. This reduction was necessary to establish the agricultural crisis reserve and to ensure that total (Common Agriculture Policy) CAP expenditure for market measures and direct aids stayed within the ceiling agreed in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020.
However, in 2014 it was eventually not necessary to use the crisis reserve. In fact the support measures taken from August 2014 onwards in the wake of the Russian embargo on EU agricultural products will only lead to EU expenditure for the 2015 budget. Moreover, there remained other unused amounts of the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund in the 2014 budget.
In order to guarantee that the reimbursement of this funding to the beneficiaries remains proportionate to the amount of adjustment made in the context of financial discipline, the Commission has set out the amounts the member states need to reimburse. €193.5 million for France, €125.6 million Germany, €110.7 million for Spain, €86.9 million to the United Kingdom, €71 million for Italy and €36.4 million for Poland. The reimbursement must be made by 15 October 2015 at the latest. (LC)