Brussels, 28/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - A little bit more tolerance for minor infractions, the abolition of certain constraints, and prior notification of certain controls: in adopting the report by Jan Mulder (ALDE, Netherlands) on the conditionality of direct aid on 21 November, the European Parliament's agriculture committee has made improvements to the initial proposal so as to make it more acceptable to those in the sector. The vote on Mr Mulder's report will take place at the European Parliament's December plenary session (10-13 December).
Environmental protection, maintaining land in good agricultural condition, animal welfare, livestock identification… Since 2003, the date of the last great reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP), the granting of EU agricultural aid has been conditional on respect for fixed criteria found in around 20 different regulations. Over the course of the years this system has turned out to be very complicated to manage for small-scale farmers and local authorities (administrative paperwork, sanctions which are occasionally disproportionate). The European Commission was aware of these problems and therefore proposed a series of measures in August to make the current regime more flexible, including: the abolition of the “10 month rule” (minimum period that parcels should be kept), the introduction of a degree of tolerance in minor cases where Community norms are not respected, and a gradual introduction period of 3 years for the system in the new member states which apply the single area payment scheme.
Tolerance for minor infractions. The majority of infractions of legislation concern minor cases which could easily be corrected on site. Almost 7 out of 10 cases of infraction concern livestock labelling and registration, for example animals which lose an ear-tag. The Commission proposes that the member states could decide in cases of non-conformity not to apply a reduction in aid for sums less than or equal to €50 per farmer per calendar year. According to the amendment agreed, this threshold should be set at €250 in order to sufficiently reduce bureaucracy. Furthermore, the MEPs envisage provisions to avoid farmers being penalised more than once (reduction of European aid and national fines) for the same infraction.
Avoiding pointless constraints for farmers. Mr Mulder's report accepts the plan to abolish the “10 month rule”, but criticises the solution proposed by the Commission to replace it: parcels should be at the farmer's disposal on the date of 15 June in order to be entitled to payments. The agriculture committee opts for a simpler solution: farmers should prove that parcels are at their disposal at the deadline for submission set by the member state concerned. The report also envisages the possibility of giving farmers prior notification of controls, except in cases where this information could enable them to manipulate the results. Finally, there are amendments designed to ensure that the member states: - plan their controls better across the year depending on the seasonal constraints on farmers; - and limit the number of agencies or inspectors sent to farms.
Permanent revision of the rules. In the view of the agriculture committee, the simplification, harmonisation and improvement of the conditionality regime should be a permanent process. They want the Commission to carry out a progress report every two years and produce proposals to resolve the “bottlenecks” in controls and review the nitrates directive.
Longer transitional period. The Commission proposed that the conditionality demands should only be applied to the new member states which have opted for an area payment scheme (all of those which have joined the EU since 2004, except for Slovenia and Malta) from 2009, with a gradual implementation up to 2011 for different categories of norms (2014 in the case of Bulgaria and Romania). In the view of the MEPs, this transitional period should be extended by a further two years, to 2013 for those countries which joined in 2004 and 2016 for those which joined the EU in 2007. (L.C.)