On 14 January, Member State experts in the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) backed the proposal to make technical adjustments to some of the provisions in force for direct payments and rural development in 2019 and 2020, the final years of the current budgetary programming period (see EUROPE 12160).
As this draft regulation must be adopted by March in order to produce the expected effects, a swift agreement at first reading with the European Parliament is essential. To the same end, on 7 January the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee approved without a vote the use of a so-called simplified procedure to speed up the adoption of the proposal.
The text allows Member States to modify the degressivity schedule for payments to areas that received rural development support (EAFRD) in the previous programming period, but which, in the current period, are no longer classified as areas subject to natural constraints other than mountainous regions. It also provides for technical assistance from the EAFRD in preparing for the implementation of the future CAP. The proposal also gives Member States the possibility to continue to transfer funds between the two pillars of the CAP during the 2020 calendar year, transfers which relate to the 2021 budget year. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)