Brussels – The path of regulatory streamlining undertaken with determination in Brussels continues: late last night (10 November), the European Parliament and the European Council reached an agreement on the proposal to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that the European Commission proposed last spring. Fewer controls, reduced administrative costs, and flexibility in environmental requirements: according to the EU executive’s estimates, farmers in the 27 member states will be able to save EUR 1.6 billion per year.
The aim is to enhance the competitiveness of European agriculture by reducing administrative burdens, fostering innovation, and improving productivity. “Today we took a big step to keep our promise to make EU agricultural rules simpler,” commented Marie Bjerre, Minister of European Affairs of Denmark, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council. “It has been a priority for the Danish presidency to reduce extra work and get rid of unnecessary rules for farmers and member states,” she added.
The provisional agreement on the “Omnibus III” simplification package, now to be formalized by the two institutions, maintains the general thrust of the Commission’s proposal. It alleviates administrative burdens for farmers and administrations, increases payments to small farmers, simplifies cross-compliance rules, particularly for organic farms, reduces on-the-spot checks, and eliminates the annual approval of results.
The “once-only” principle for controls passes, according to which farmers should not be subject to more than one official on-the-spot inspection in a given year. In addition, the European Council and European Parliament negotiators provided greater flexibility for Member States in determining to what extent partially organic farms can be considered compliant with certain environmental standards, known as the GAEC (Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions). Farmers certified as organic, on the other hand, will automatically be considered as complying with those requirements.
At the same time, Brussels has provided more support for small farmers and those affected by natural disasters. Member States will be able to provide emergency payments to farmers affected by adverse weather events. Small farmers will be able to benefit from an annual payment of up to EUR 3,000 and will have access to a new one-off payment for business development of up to EUR 75,000.
According to the rapporteur for the European Parliament, Portuguese Socialist André Rodrigues, this revision will make the CAP “fairer, clearer, and closer to the people who work the land every day.” That is more than nine million farmers across Europe. Regulatory simplification and “clearer” environmental guidelines will ensure that “ good practices are encouraged instead of punished by confusion or red tape.“
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
