PURPOSE: amend the financial rules governing the
implementation of the EU budget in the field of
agriculture.
LEGISLATIVE ACT: Regulation (EU) 2017/2393 of the
European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulations (EU) No
1305/2013 on support for rural development by the European
Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), (EU) No 1306/2013
on the financing, management and monitoring of the common
agricultural policy, (EU) No 1307/2013 establishing rules for
direct payments to farmers under support schemes within the
framework of the common agricultural policy, (EU) No 1308/2013
establishing a common organisation of the markets in agricultural
products and (EU) No 652/2014 laying down provisions for the
management of expenditure relating to the food chain, animal health
and animal welfare, and relating to plant health and plant
reproductive material.
CONTENT: the Regulation aims to simplify the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) through a series of technical
improvements to the four CAP Regulations: i) direct payments,
ii) rural development, iii) common organisation of markets and iv)
horizontal regulation.
Direct payments:
- the distinction between active and non-active
farmers will become voluntary, allowing Member States in which
it causes excessive administrative burdens to remove
it;
- some aspects of greening are
simplified;
- the current rules are amended to give more flexibility
to Member States for the implementation of the permanent
grassland requirement: Member States will be allowed to include
certain shrubs or trees that can produce animal feed in permanent
grassland where grasses and other herbaceous forage remain
predominant, in the whole or in part of their
territory;
- Member States will have the possibility of reviewing,
on an annual basis, their decisions on the reduction of the part
of the basic payment to be granted to farmers which exceeds EUR
150 000, provided that such a review does not lead to a
reduction of the amounts available for rural
development;
- the list of types of areas of ecological interest is
extended to cover areas on which plant varieties such as
Miscanthus and Silphium perfoliatum are grown, as
well as land lying fallow for melliferous plants;
- access to all five years of payments to young
farmers will be facilitated even in cases where they have not
applied for support immediately after setting up. In addition,
Member States will be able to apply payments to young farmers under
the first pillar, up to 50% of existing ceilings;
- Member States' responsibilities regarding the
production limiting character of voluntary coupled support
are clarified and the flexibility with regard to voluntary coupled
support is increased.
Common organisation of the markets:
- the role and tasks of producer organisations and their
associations are clarified in order
to strengthen the position of farmers in the supply chain:
recognised producer organisations in all sectors for which a
common organisation of the markets is established may carry out
activities such as production planning, cost optimisation, placing
producer members' products on the market and conducting contractual
negotiations. Such activities, however, should not exclude
competition and competition authorities should have the right to
intervene in such cases;
- the list of objectives that can be pursued by
interbranch organisations is extended to cover also measures
to prevent and manage risks related to animal health,
plant-protection and the environment.
Rural development:
- the sectoral income stabilisation tool
will be made more effective by allowing Member
States to define, in their rural development programs, the income
to be taken into account for the activation of the instrument, with
some flexibility. At the same time, aid relating to insurance
contracts covering, inter alia, losses caused by adverse climatic
events will be available when more than 20% of the average annual
production of the farmer is destroyed;
- several changes are made to the rules that the
financial instruments must observe in order to promote their
use and to harmonise them with other EU structural and investment
funds.
The Commission undertook in a statement to review the
functioning of the crisis reserve as part of the preparation
of the next multiannual financial framework, the aim being to allow
an efficient and timely intervention in times of market crisis. The
Commission will also address the continuation of support for
rural development after 2020 in the context of its proposal for
the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
ENTRY INTO FORCE: 30.12.2017.
APPLICATION: from 1.1.2018.