Brussels, 21/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - In Brussels on Monday 21 January, the agriculture ministers of the member states of the EU reached a unanimous political agreement on the simplification of the system which makes the payment of agricultural aid conditional upon adherence to environmental, food safety and animal welfare criteria (principal of conditionality of aid). The new regulation will enter into force on 1 April. Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture, has indicated that she may revisit certain subjects from this dossier when carrying out the “health check” exercise on the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP).
Tolerance of minor infringements. Most infringements to the legislation which have been noted relate to minor cases, which can easily be remedied on site at the farm. Under the compromise, the member states may decide not to apply the reduction of aid of a sum equal to or less than 100 euros per farmer and per calendar year. However, the competent authority of the member state must take the measures required to ensure that the farmer in question complies with the rules.
The member states may also decide not to apply the reduction “when there is reason to consider a case of infringement as minor”. However, cases of infringement which constitute a direct risk to human health or animal health will not be considered minor.
Ten-month rule. The new regulation gets rid of the current ten-month rule (whereby farmers are obliged to keep for 10 months all parcels of land declared, in order to activate the single payment scheme). These provisions were felt by farmers to be too binding.
Transition periods. Conditionality requirements will not apply to the new member states which opted for a surface payment regime (all of those which joined the EU in 2004, with the exception of Slovenia and Malta) until the following dates: 1 January 2009 for part A of the criteria to be observed (environment, cattle identification, meat traceability), 1 January 2011 for parts B (plant health, public health, food legislation, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, notification of certain animal diseases) and C (welfare of livestock, specific rules for calves and pigs). For Romania and Bulgaria, the cut-off dates are three years later in each case (1 January 2007 for part A and 1 January 2014 for parts B and C). (L.C.)