Brussels, 25/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - It is only a few days before the college of Commissioners votes on the proposals on the general framework for enlargement funding of agriculture, structural aid and the budget. diplomats from Central and East European counties have expressed their disappointment about the draft text produced by Commissioner Franz Fischler's services, defining the direct payment strategy to EU accession candidate countries. According to this document, farmers in new Member States will have to wait "at least ten years" after the date of their accession (2004 for the countries: Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia - 2008 for Bulgaria and Romania) before being able to reap the full benefits of direct payments. This strategy is contrary to the principle defended by candidate countries to be treated on the same footing as current Member States and will probably be amended in the next few days. Heads of Cabinet and Commissioners are due to meet on Saturday and Monday to discuss the document that will be adopted on Wednesday.
A project that opens the way up to important concessions for candidate countries
DG Agriculture's draft document stipulates that direct payments should be gradually introduced to new Member States after their accession, in line with a two stage transition period of at least ten years: (1) for five years direct payments will be introduced at a level of 10-15% of the EU level and then slowly increased by 5% every year, (2) Once candidate countries have progressed in economic restructuring, aid would be increased more quickly to the full level. At the same time new Member States could submit national aid schemes under existing EU state aid rules. DG Agriculture did not rules out that some candidate countries could ask for funding for their agricultural sectors in order to compete with current Member States and impose their own national protective mechanisms.
As Mr Fischler has previously outlined, this introductory transitional strategy for direct payments ("phasing in") will be accompanied by an expansion in funding allocated to rural development programmes. If candidate countries qualify for Objective 1 and they benefit from structural funds like "cohesion" funds for current Member States, rural development spending will be included in the "Feoga-Orientation" section of the Community budget (this section is included in Phase 2 on financial perspectives in structural actions) and could rise to between EUR 2-3 billion, not including funding already allocated under the Feoga-Guarantee (market expenses).
The goal also sought by Mr. Fischler consists in setting up a system essentially consisting of aid per hectare of agricultural surface area (thus decoupled from production). These measures would have the advantage of dissuading countries from increasing their production, while enabling them to gently restructure their farms and more easily integrate the Common Agricultural Policy. As the authors of this draft text explain, these countries, already with surpluses in cereals, oilseeds and pork, could increase their production until 2006 and further inflate the Community surplus in wheat, barley, rye and pork. A fall in production is, however, expected in the milk and been sectors to the benefit of current Member States which would see their exports increase.