Brussels, 09/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - In a letter sent in mid-December to Commissioner Phil Hogan, the agriculture ministers of six EU countries (Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Estonia) have called for a “fundamental review” of greening rules (direct aid) , the requirements of which are felt to be too complex, in 2017.
Agriculture Commissioner Hogan has already announced the launch of a process to simplify the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP), and in particular greening. These six member states have “upped the ante” by calling for a fundamental mid-term review of greening in 2017.
They want the European Commission, from this year, to be pragmatic in its interpretation of the greening rules. Then the six member states call for account to be taken in the short-term assessment of direct payments, of the difficulties experienced in implementing greening. They want a review of the regulations in 2016 taking into account the impact of all greening requirements in 2015 and for a root and branch review of greening to be conducted in 2016.
“In the light of our experiences, we believe there are a number of opportunities to simplify and streamline some of the central CAP requirements”, they state. Appended to their letter is a list of 14 points - mainly related to greening but also to rural development, conditionality of aid and payment and control provisions - on which they call on the Directorate General for Agriculture either to show flexibility or to re-assess the measures. Among these demands: on crop diversification and maintaining permanent grassland, they want the Commission to assess the financial and administrative impact on the agricultural sector in relation to the environmental benefits. There should also be greater use made of tolerances in applying penalties to farmers, they suggest. They argue, too, for conditionality, greening and second pillar measure checks to be relaxed and for them to be based on risk analyses.
Hogan has already announced that, in an effort to bring simplification, he will look again at greening, and in particular ecological focus areas, in a year's time. Moreover, no penalty will be imposed on farmers for failure to comply with greening requirements in the course of the first two years beyond a possible 30% reduction in green payment. The commissioner has never stated that a mid-term re-assessment of the CAP would be launched. He has even said that the rules must not be changed too often and that the reform's basic political decisions should not be re-examined. (LC)