Luxembourg, 24/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - Ministers of agriculture from European Union member states reached a political agreement on Monday 22 October in Luxembourg on more transparent financing rules for Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) spending. The ruling, which includes the publication of beneficiaries and the amounts of agricultural aid, still has to be formally adopted by the Council. Greece and Cyprus will vote against the text because they oppose the retroactive nature of the payment suspension procedures. Germany, Austria and Luxembourg indicated their desire to abstain because they would have preferred that the European Commission (and not member states, as the new regulation stipulates) is responsible for publication of data on CAP aid beneficiaries.
The regulation aims to complete and clarify certain aspects of procedures in force on: - the Commission's powers for reducing or suspending monthly payments in certain conditions (financial corrections imposed twice for the same reason, serious failings in the control system, absence of corrective measures to end detected shortcomings). Suspension or reduction will follow the sending of a “warning letter” to the member state concerned; setting up of reasonable deadlines allowing the Commission to check whether member states met their ex-post control obligations in certain CAP spending and proceeding, if needs be, to a relevant discharge; the retrospective publication (for each tax year) of information about Community fund beneficiaries as from 16 October 2007 for European Agricultural Guarantee Funds (EAGF) and from 1 July 2007 for European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). This publication will be ensured by each member state.
The Commission welcomed this agreement explaining that member states were responsible for the accuracy of published data. In the context of payment suspensions (of concern to Greece and Cyprus), Mariann Fischer Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture, pointed out that this possibility already existed and that the new regulation aimed to clarify in which the conditions the Commission used them. (L.C.)