Report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 73/2009 as regards the application of direct payments to farmers in respect of the year 2013

(COM(2011)0630 – C7-0337/2011 – 2011/0286(COD))

This report by Luis Manuel CAPOULAS SANTOS (S&D, PT) was written for and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. Opinions were sought from the Committees on:

Development

Employment and Social Affairs

Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Regional Development

Budgets

However, only the Committee on Budgets provided an opinion.

The report is about complex bureaucratic details concerning the alignment of an existing regulation (EC) 73/2009 with the CAP reform proposals for 2014 to 2020 and the fact that the calendar year of 2013 corresponds to the financial year of 2014. This proposal for a Regulation has been produced to manage this 2013 transitional period and will set ceilings for, and the level of reductions to be applied to, farmers' direct payments in 2013. EU-10 Member States¹ will be treated differently from EU-15 Member States²; Cyprus and Malta are again handled differently.

Regulation (EC) 378/2007 was intended to strengthen rural development policy in certain Member States by establishing a mechanism for voluntary modulation of direct payments. The current provision for voluntary modulation of direct payments, which ends in 2012, is only being used by the UK at present. As a result the UK faces a significant gap in funding for its rural development programme in 2013. For this reason, it has been suggested that the existing financial structure is used for the year 2013 to ensure continuity in payment levels.

Financial discipline mechanism:

The current financial discipline provision requires all farmers’ direct payments to be scaled back if the budget forecast would be exceeded. The Commission will provide rules on how Member States should apply the financial discipline adjustment on the amount of payments to be paid to farmers in 2013.

Delegation of powers to the Commission:

The power to adopt delegated acts shall be conferred on the Commission for a period of one year from 1 January 2013. This is in order to provide for rules on how Member States should apply the financial discipline adjustment on the amount of payments to be paid to farmers in 2013.

The European Parliament voted to approve the report on the 4th July 2012 with 650 for, 23 against and 16 abstentions.

To read the report click here

Alternatively visit the website at www.europarl.europa.eu

¹ EU-10 is a collective term for the new member states viz: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia

² EU-15 is a collective term for the original 15 EU Member States countries viz: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England (UK), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.

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