Brussels, 19/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Member States have reacted well to the three options put to them by the European Commission to improve risk and crisis management in the agricultural sector in the future (EUROPE 8910). This was the result of talks held on Monday by the Special Agricultural Committee (SAC). The Commission has put forward three options to pay for these measures (financial participation in insurance policies against natural disasters, support for agricultural mutual company funds and revenue support). Several delegations expressed a preference for option 1 (including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece and the Czech Republic) and many others stated that they could support both options 1 and 3. France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium supported option 2.
The Commission is proposing that the funding of these measures is covered by using 1% of the money saved by the changes made to direct aid (reducing direct aid to boost the rural development programmes- known as modulation). France proposed a different means of finance: the States could choose between the money from modulation (1% as planned) and a percentage of 0.1% of the value of the national agricultural production of the Member State. According to France, using a proportion of the agricultural production value would answer the concerns of various delegations on the subject of modulation (the new Member States are not involved in this operation and other Member States feel that modulation benefits the countries with large crops, such as cereals). Several Member States (including Germany, Italy, and Czech Republic) expressed an interest in the French idea. The Commission promised to think about it. The UK and Sweden, on the other hand, dug in their heels against any other funding instrument than modulation.
Furthermore, like at the last Council, France, Italy and Spain regretted that fact that the Commission has at this point refused to extend the crisis management measures in place since 1974 for bovine meat to any other sectors, and stressed the need for additional measures in various sectors of production, such as fruits and vegetables.