The European Commission’s response to the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to agricultural supply chains “was appropriate, but insufficiently targeted”, the European Court of Auditors said in a report published on Thursday 20 April.
With a budget of €712 million, crisis distillation was implemented quickly by reallocating unused funds from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD).
The main budgetary response to the pandemic came from national budgets. “We identified a risk of distortion of competition between the Member States, as well as the risk of overcompensation when State aid supported a sector that also received EU funds”, the report warned.
Five of the 14 Member States made EU funding available to all farmers suffering losses. At the same time, the other nine targeted specific sectors and supported beneficiaries irrespective of whether or not they had suffered losses.
The take-up of private storage was low, particularly in the meat sector. Crisis distillation, with a budget of €293 million, was implemented with significant differences between the Member States. The Commission is invited to improve the targeting of CAP measures in the event of a new crisis.
More info: https://aeur.eu/f/6ga (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)