Brussels, 21/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - At the meeting on 20 November of European agriculture ministers, eight of the ten new Member States (the exceptions being Slovenia and Malta) called for their single area payment scheme (SAPS), agreed on during accession negotiations, to be extended until the end of the current perspective, that is, until the end of 2013. This system is simpler than the single farm payment scheme introduced by the 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Furthermore, these eight Member States have called on the European Commission to extend beyond 2008 the authorisation granted them not to respect the requirements of agricultural aid conditionality (aid granted to be conditional on respect for animal welfare or environmental standards). This exemption was due to last, they say, until they began to implement the single payment scheme in operation in the EU15 (plus Slovenia and Cyprus, which were the only new Member States to choose this system) or until they received the same level of aid as the EU15 countries. The European Commission has said that the debate on the extension of the SAPS could take place at the same time as the CAP “health check”, scheduled for 2008-2009. The Commission is showing greater firmness on the favourable treatment with regard to conditionality, pointing out that these authorisations could not be extended beyond the timescale set in the respective accession treaties, that is, 31 December 2008. The remainder of the proposal was generally accepted by the Council: extending aid to energy crops to the eight new Member States applying the SAPS and increasing, for this purpose, from 1.5 to 2 million hectares, the maximum guaranteed area eligible for this aid (see EUROPE 9273 and 9272). (lc)