The Commission
presents its report on the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 3/2008
on information provision and promotion measures for agricultural products on
the internal market and in third countries. It recalls that two reports have
already been presented, in 2004 and 2006. This report covers the operation of
the promotion scheme between 2006 and the first half of 2010. It deals mainly
with improvements in management and impact assessment as well as with
simplification aspects (the two distinct regulations targeting, respectively,
third countries and internal markets were merged into one). It focuses on all
Commission Decisions adopted since the last report and analyses the data
available with regard to the promotion of agricultural products.
Co-financed
promotion programmes: during the period covered
by this report, all Member States took part in promotion efforts, showing a
broad interest in the scheme. In all, 430 programme proposals, with a total
budget of EUR 505.6m, were received by the Commission departments after a
first selection by the national authorities. 183 of them were accepted for
Community co-financing totalling EUR 248.6 million. Of these, 134 concerned
the internal market and 49 targeted third country markets. Almost all
products listed in Annex 1 to Regulation (EC) No 501/2008 benefited from
these promotion efforts. Dairy products were the greatest beneficiaries in
terms of accepted programmes (36), followed by quality products (PDO, PGI,
organic and outermost regions: 32), fruit and vegetables, fresh and processed
(30), meat products, including poultry (23), wines and spirits (20), olive
oil (8), etc. The main reasons for rejection during the reference period
were: the actions were not described in enough detail to give the Commission
departments a clear picture of the programme; the budget was not sufficiently
detailed to allow the programme’s value for money to be assessed, as required
by Council Regulation (EC) No 3/2008. The reasons for proposing the programme
were not given; elements proving that the implementing body had been well
chosen were lacking. In more recent years, another significant ground for
rejection was the absence of SMART objectives, or of methods to be used for
programme evaluation and impact assessment.
Promotion
activities managed directly by DG AGRI: the
report describes directly managed activities with some emphasis on the high
level missions or promotional events, notably to India and China, which were
organised as follows from 2007 to 2010. It also discusses the promotion
campaign for organic food and farming, and other expenditure under direct
management. A detailed description of all activities under direct management
by DG AGRI is given in the Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the
report.
The report
states that the period 2006-2010 featured several amendments to the scheme of
EU co-financed programmes for the promotion of agricultural products. It
makes the following points:
- the
promotion scheme was improved in the light of the last report’s
recommendations: the two Council regulations were merged into one
(now Council Regulation (EC) No 3/2008 of the Council) and the two
Commission regulations were also merged into one (Commission Regulation
(EC) No 501/2008). , of the Commission);
- the selection
procedure for the new programmes at Commission level was improved
through the adoption of guidelines and the introduction of quantitative
evaluation methods (evaluation grid) and reference costs for the various
actions included in the programmes. The paper notes that robust
guidelines for preparing promotion programmes have been drawn up and
adopted. DG AGRI’s internal audit report of May 2009 noted that the
systems in place comply with applicable rules and procedures in a
satisfactory manner and that since 2005, there has been a constant
increase of the quality of the selection procedure’. The guidelines
already adopted and updated will certainly help in this respect;
- improvements
were made to the impact assessment of programmes during and at
the end of their implementation. Since 2008, an assessment of the impact
of the programmes is made when the programmes come to an end and is
included in the final reports examined by the programme managers. This
assessment makes use of indicators such as the budget execution rate or
the conformity of the implemented programme with the proposed one. The
measures included in the programmes are increasingly successful. Up to
now the reports were often drafted by the proposing organisations
themselves. From 2010 on, the evaluations will be made by independent
assessment bodies. A good indicator of the quality of the promotion
tools developed during the implementation of the promotion programmes,
and of their positive impact, is the fact that, after many programmes
are completed, a request is introduced by the proposing organisation to
be allowed to produce additional quantities of these tools for further
use at their own cost;
- the management
of the programmes was consequently improved. The implementation rate
(expenditure/appropriations) of the sector increased significantly, to
almost 100 %. The trend in the implementation rate has to be underlined:
sound management of the promotion sector helped put a stop to the
under-consumption that was one of the main features of the sector up to
2006;
- during the
report period, the promotion scheme was also used to counter crisis
consequences in two cases: avian influenza (2007) and the crisis in the
dairy sector (2008).
- Many other
improvements were initiated by the Commission departments during the
reporting period, in line with the Court of Auditors’ recommendations.
Recent audits
by the Court of Auditors and DG Agriculture and Rural Development’s internal
audit unit have confirmed these improvements. Nevertheless, other
improvements still have to be made:
- The quality
of the programmes sent to the Commission departments needs to be further
improved;
- the
selection, monitoring and audit of programmes by the Member States’
competent authorities also has to be further improved. Greater attention
needs to be paid to the tender procedures applied for the choice of the
implementing bodies. In this context both Articles 9(2)(e) and 12(2)
stress the technical and financial capacities these bodies have to
possess in order to ensure that the promotion actions are implemented as
efficiently as possible;
- the
procedure currently in place to approve co-financed programmes is rather
cumbersome. Programmes are evaluated twice: at the level of the Member
State and then at EU level. The whole selection procedure takes seven
months. Nevertheless, more than 50 % of the programmes received are
refused.
The current
information and promotion policy will be reviewed in parallel with the
discussion on the CAP reform after 2013. The promotion instruments should
provide EU producers with an effective tool whilst attempting at the same
time to reduce the administrative burden.