On Wednesday 3 September, the Committee of Member States’ Representatives to the EU (Coreper) approved the Council of the EU’s position on simplifying certain rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
This ‘omnibus’ package includes amendments to two of the three basic legislative acts establishing the rules of the CAP, namely the regulation on strategic plans and the ‘horizontal’ regulation.
The EU Council’s position supports the following objectives: reducing the administrative burden for farmers and administrations and reducing controls, increasing payments to small farmers and simplifying cross-compliance rules, in particular for organic farms, reducing on-the-spot checks and abolishing the annual clearance of performance.
The new types of crisis payments have been postponed until the next CAP reform.
The EU Council’s mandate improves certain aspects of the proposal: it gives Member States the flexibility to decide to what extent partially organic farms can be considered as respecting certain Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC); it improves the possibility for farmers to benefit from risk management tools; and it increases the rate of advance direct payments, thus giving Member States a better capacity to help farmers affected, for example, by natural disasters.
The Danish Presidency of the EU Council is ready to enter into negotiations with the European Parliament, once the latter has adopted its position (see EUROPE 13700/9), with a view to reaching a final agreement on this dossier. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)