This Commission report concerns the implementation of the measures concerning the apiculture sector of Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007. It meets the obligation, under the Regulation, to submit a report every three years on the implementation of national apiculture programmes in the Member States. It covers the years 2009/2010, 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 and corresponds to the last year of the previous triennial apiculture programmes (2008-2010) and the first two years of the current programme (2011-2013). This is the fifth such report presented by the Commission.
All Member States notified a national apiculture programme in respect of the periods 2008-2010 and 2011-2013. This shows the strong interest of Member States as well as the needs of European apiculture, a small sector dominated by non-professional beekeepers that faces serious challenges due in particular to bee colony losses, increased production costs and cheap imports. In 2012, the Commission asked for an external evaluation of the measures for the apiculture sector. This report includes the main outcomes of this evaluation.
Main conclusions:
1. Both from the point of view of the Member States and the operators, the national apiculture programmes have been beneficial for the beekeeping sector. The measures allow for the maintenance of the production of high quality honey in the EU despite a difficult context with rising production costs, threats to bee survival and fierce international competition by cheap honey imports from third countries.
2. In light of the information presented in this report and the outcomes of the evaluation of the apiculture measures, the Commission does not envisage modifying the list of measures eligible for apiculture in Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007. However, it will propose to amend the implementing Regulation (EC) No 917/2004 in order to ensure that apiculture measures can be applied and funded all year round and to improve their management.
3. The Commission will work towards better coordination between the national applied research projects and the Union research projects in order to optimize the use of their results and to improve their dissemination to the beekeeping sector.
4. Lastly, the Commission will seek to improve further the efficiency of the existing measures by looking for potential synergies between the apiculture measures and the rural development programmes. This could involve rural development measures such as supporting young beekeepers' installation and modernisation of holdings, as well as the use of agro-environmental measures to increase the availability of melliferous plants for honey bees.