Brussels, 07/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday 7 May, EU Agriculture Ministers held their second debate on improvements to cross-compliance rules (see EUROPE 9397 for changes proposed by European Commission).
The Netherlands called for “transparent, simple and accessible” rules to allow a balance between the cost of the controls and the potential savings. Several Member States laid emphasis on the need to take account of their national administrative organisation system and, therefore, to plan in greater subsidiarity. Austria recommended the setting in place of indicators on the quality of the controls. Most of the countries called for a swift implementation of the new simplified rules. In this context, Italy and Belgium drew attention to the fact that no differentiation of treatment is provided for between farmers who have been checked before and those who will be checked after the new criteria are adopted.
Mariann Fischer Boel, the Commissioner for Agriculture, announced that she was to give a detailed response to the specific requests made in a letter sent to her by Denmark, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. These countries are calling on the Commission to go further in its decisions for the simplification of these conditionality rules. The Commissioner however warned against “overloading the boat” at this stage, particularly as the whole of the system of conditionality is to be re-examined at the bill of health of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP), in 2008. The German Presidency of the Council of ministers of the EU confirmed that it intended to have the conclusions of the Council on this dossier adopted in June. (lc)