Brussels, 06/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The first measures simplifying the common agricultural policy (CAP) will be implemented in 2016 and will include the pledge to review provisions on the greening of aid (30% of aid linked to compliance with good environmental practice).
That is what European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said in a letter to Latvian minister Janis Duklavs, who chairs the Council meetings, and Czeslaw Siekierski, chairman of the European Parliament agriculture committee.
The commissioner says that his services are working, as a matter of priority, on direct payments and market measures, with a later second stage to be devoted to rural development, once the 118 national and regional programmes for 2014-2020 have been adopted.
“More detailed results of both the screening of the agricultural acquis and the examination on that of Member States' proposals will be available later in Spring 2015. On that basis and taking account of proposals from other sources, I will specify in greater detail my simplification and subsidiarity intentions later this year, including appropriate initiatives that could be launched within the following twelve months”, Hogan says. He notes, however, that this has been made more difficult by the flexibility granted to the member states in applying the rules.
In parallel, he states that he is considering “proposals for the reform and simplification of the regulatory framework for quality policy and for fruit and vegetables”.
The commissioner points out that the Commission began work in 2014 on aligning the 200 or so existing common market organisation implementing regulations with the Lisbon Treaty. This work is “well advanced” and “will result in the adoption of several implementing and delegated acts in the course of 2015 and 2016”.
Hogan repeats that the simplification, so keenly sought by the sector, will not change the policy decisions taken in the 2013 reform.
Simplification of the CAP is on the agenda for the meeting of EU agriculture ministers on 16 March. (Lionel Changeur)