At the EU ‘Agriculture’ Council on Monday 23 September, the European Commission gave assurances that the work already well underway to simplify the rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will continue.
The Latvian Minister for Agriculture, supported by several countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden), has presented a document (https://aeur.eu/f/dj0 ) on the challenges posed by the CAP’s ‘New Delivery Model’.
“[...] you are broadly happy with the New Delivery Model, based on the first year of reporting and the first Annual Performance Clearance, you are looking for some fine tuning”, summarised the Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski. His departments will assess the proposals “very carefully”.
With regard to the annual performance report, the Commission organised two discussions with experts from EU countries on the improvements to be made. A workshop on the annual performance report will be held on 26 September.
With regard to the annual clearance of accounts, the Commission services are considering amendments to the delegated act introducing de minimis thresholds. A discussion will take place within the expert group on 3 October, and again on 14 November.
For the second year of implementation of the strategic programmes implementing the CAP, the Commissioner suggested splitting these plans in two, with a first part containing the broad guidelines and an operational part allowing more flexibility for modifications. It will be up to the next Commission to look into the matter.
De minimis aid. Germany (supported by France) has asked the Commission to raise the threshold for de minimis aid in the agricultural sector. Berlin is inviting it to raise the de minimis ceiling per company over three years to €50,000 (see EUROPE 13418/21). In its proposal, the Commission proposes to increase the de minimis ceiling per undertaking over three years from €20,000 to €37,000, while raising the national ceilings to 1.5% of the average of the three highest annual agricultural production values over the period 2012-2023 (see EUROPE 13426/16). The Commission is assessing the feedback received and considering how to incorporate it into the regulation. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)