On 16 December, EU agriculture ministers will receive a progress report on the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (see EUROPE 12378/9, 12348/12).
At its meeting on 2 December, the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA) continued its technical examination of some elements of the proposals on this issue.
It started by examining the draft text on the horizontal regulation presented by the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which is an update of the June version of the text (from the Romanian Presidency). Delegations are reported to have agreed in general with the progress presented in the document and to have made comments, particularly with regard to the single audit approach, Commission audits, operational audits, the auditing system for cross-compliance and penalties, the agricultural reserve and financial discipline.
The SCA then went on to examine the amendments made by the Finnish Presidency to the text (http://bit.ly/2DGxLko ) on the regulation establishing common organisation of markets (COM). It is reported that a large number of Member States welcomed the content of the text and several accepted the proposed amendments. Some delegations believed that the issue of wine labelling required further work.
New delivery model. The final item discussed by the SCA was a working document from the Finnish Presidency (http://bit.ly/382Zw4w ) containing suggestions for further work on the 'new delivery model'. It is reported that the delegations welcomed the Presidency's efforts to clarify how the new 'delivery model' might work in practice and supported the principle of limiting the level of detail in strategic plans to just those elements that are needed to review and approve the plans.
It is reported that differing views emerged with regard to the planning and reporting of non-area-based and non-animal-based payments. Several delegations reportedly reiterated their request for performance reviews to be planned only twice during the programming period. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)