Brussels, 31/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - The Austrian Presidency of the EU Council noted, on 29 May, that there was agreement among a qualified majority of Member States in favour of the proposal to extend the aid regime for flax and hemp producers by two years (i.e. for the 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 harvest years) (see EUROPE 9161 on the European Commission's initial proposal). The Presidency drew these conclusions after a working session of the Special Agriculture Committee (SAC) organised on this dossier in Krems, Austria, on the fringe of the informal meeting of European farm ministers. The regulation will be formally adopted by the Agriculture Council on 19 June.
The proposal provides for the current level of aid to long flax fibre to be maintained at 160 euros/tonne, as well as the aid to short flax fibre and to hemp fibre at 90 euros/tonne. National guaranteed quantities are also kept as they are until 2007/2008: 80,823 tonnes for long flax fibres and 146, 296 tonnes for short flax fibres and hemp fibres. These amounts are divided between Member States in the form of national guaranteed quantities. Status quo also concerns complementary aid granted to first processing companies for long flax fibre in certain traditional areas: 120 euros/hectare for high-output areas of the Netherlands and western Belgium and 50 euros/hectare for the north of France. The Commission will be publishing a report in 2008 to assess how useful it is to extend the single payment scheme, in force in many other sectors, to flax and hemp.
During the SAC, the European Commission refused demands put forward by Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia. These countries asked to be able to enjoy the complementary transitional aid scheme and to review the national guaranteed quantities upward given that, in their view, their production level is set to rise. The Commission replied that these three countries did not have the right to benefit from complementary aid and that the proposal took into account data on the processing of flax and hemp but not production prospects.