Oulu, 26/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - EU Member States' experts on the Special Committee on Agriculture (SCA), meeting in Oulu, Finland, on 25 September, were of the opinion that the proposed changes to the energy crop aid scheme were not ambitious enough (see EUROPE 9272), while nonetheless backing its main aim of extending the aid scheme to eight of the ten new Member States which are not currently involved (having elected to adhere to the single payment per farm scheme in 2004, rather than decoupled aid introduced as part of the reform of the CAP in 2003). In the SCA, several countries (including Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Hungary and Ireland) were critical of the current energy crop aid scheme, while welcoming the Commission's wish to simplify it. France, Spain, Italy, Poland and Belgium felt the proposed increase in the maximum area eligible for this aid was not sufficiently large. The Commission proposes to increase the area from 1.5 to 2 million hectares with eight Member States joining the scheme. Cyprus called for the current premium of €45/hectare to be raised. The SCA was somewhat divided on the proposal to allow Member States to grant national aid of up to 50% of the costs of establishing multi-annual crops for biomass production (on areas on which an application for the energy crop has been made). Portugal and other countries felt that it should be for the Community budget, not national authorities, to pay for such measures, while Ireland and others welcomed the proposal.
Extension to Single Area Payment Scheme
The SCA largely agreed with the proposal for a two-year extension, until the end of 2010, of the Single Area Payment Scheme for the new Member States. Some new Member States, such as Hungary, Estonia and Lithuania, however, wanted this aid scheme to be retained until the end of 2013, and some of their number wanted to be exempted until the end of 2013 from conditionality of aid rules (aid granted on condition that environmental, public health and animal welfare conditions are met). The Commission proposal is for this exemption to be ended at the end of 2008.