Brussels, 13/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - Visiting South Ostrobothnia/Finland on Saturday, Commissioner Franz Fischler, stressed his willingness to find a workable solution on the question of extending Finnish agricultural state aids. As a transitional measure, agreed as part of Finland's EU accession package to help farmers integrate into the CAP, Finland was authorised to maintain certain subsidies. This measures expires at the end of the year.
Mr Fischler said, "I am very familiar with Finnish agriculture. I have been in Finland many times, I maintain an excellent relationship with the Finnish authorities and the farming sector and in my home country Austria, many farmers have to work under similar, difficult conditions. This is why I have great sympathy for the concerns of Finnish farmers. My philosophy has always been to look at farming not only from a pure efficiency angle, but also from the point of view of what farming does to maintain our environment, our landscape, our culture and traditions”. He also appealed for a gradual phasing out of Finnish State Aid. "Any prolongation of this support would therefore have to encourage farmers to invest, modernise and adapt to the new challenges, and not the opposite. Consequently, any solution has to be targeted, time limited and degressive”. The Commissioner continues, “We need pragmatism and realism about what the Commission can possibly do. We are ready to address justified concerns. The Commission has already moved. We have already put concrete and very reasonable offers on the table to help these talks progress. Now it is up to Finland to show flexibility to find a workable solution we can jointly defend in Europe. My door is wide open to talk business. I sincerely hope that we get an acceptable deal this month”.
The Commissioner then underlined that during negotiations on CAP reform, Finland agreed to additional support in two essential areas: drying aid and less favoured areas. They can increase the maximum aid per hectare under the less favoured area (LFA) scheme from € 200 to € 250: an additional € 48 million for less favoured area support can be made available for farmers in the South of Finland. The Commissioner urged Finland to make full use of other possibilities to support farmers in the South of Finland. "Under the normal EU state aid rules, Finland could have granted at least € 34 million more investment aid in 2002 alone for the farmers in the South. Finland could also substantially increase the current aid intensity of at times as little as 25% for environmental investments, and 20% for animal welfare and hygiene to 75%”, he said.