8 Simplification of the Common Agricultural
Policy
| (30504)
7771/09
COM(09) 128
| Commission Communication: A simplified CAP for Europe — a success for all
|
| Legal base | — |
| Document originated | 18 March 2009
|
| Deposited in Parliament | 23 March 2009
|
| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
|
| Basis of consideration | EM of 3 April 2009
|
| Previous Committee Report | None
|
| To be discussed in Council | May 2009
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Cleared
|
Background
8.1 According to the Commission, the simplification of the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) — which
now forms part of its overall strategy on Better Regulation[43]
— makes an essential contribution to creating a more competitive
agricultural economy, and it has sought in this Communication
to highlight the most recent developments, and to indicate where
further simplification might be achieved in the future.
The current document
RESULTS SINCE 2005
8.2 The Commission begins by recalling what has been
achieved since 2005, in terms of both technical and policy simplification.
In the former case, it points to the removal of a large number
of Council
and Community
legal acts which are now obsolescent; to the creation of a single
common market organisation, bringing together all the sectoral
regimes; the introduction of a streamlined policy on state aids
for the sector (including a higher de minimis threshold,
below which notification of an aid to the Commission is not required);
the launching of a study into the administrative burden for farmers
arising from the 2003 reform of the CAP; and the establishment
of various forums for the sharing of best practice. As regards
policy-related action, it identifies the reforms of the sugar,
wine and fruit and vegetables regimes (including the inclusion
of the last two of these into the Single Payment Scheme); other
adaptations to that Scheme, in order to make it more "farmer-friendly";
and a greater use of impact assessments, with wider stakeholder
involvement. It says that it has also provided increased training
on legislative drafting, and that there has been greater use of
information technology to reduce administrative burdens.
SIMPLIFICATION ACTION PLAN
8.3 The Commission points out that its Simplification
Action Plan now includes 50 projects relating to the CAP, arising
from suggestions made by Member States, farmers organisations,
processors, and from within the Commission itself. These include
the removal of a need for a beef export licence where no refund
(subsidy) is involved; less burdensome requirements for the labelling
of eggs; greater flexibility in the link between land ownership
and a farmer's eligibility for direct support payments; a major
reduction in the obligations arising from import/export licences
in the sector; a reduction from 36 to 10 in the products to which
fruit and vegetables grading standards apply; simpler arrangements
for on-the-spot checks for cross-compliance, and the removal of
any financial penalty for de minimis infringements.
8.4 The Communication goes on to highlight three
particular areas which it describes as of key importance:
- The introduction of a new single
Common Market Organisation, which it says replaced all 21 individual
common market organisations, thereby reducing the number of articles
from 920 to about 230, and repealing 78 Council
acts: as a result, it says that the CAP is now effectively regulated
by only four legal acts —
those on direct payments, the single Common Market Organisation,
rural development, and the financing of the CAP.
- The study on administrative burdens, which it
says identified a number of elements affecting farms, notably
the way in which Member States chose to apply the regulation on
direct payments (including the extent to which certain elements
of support have been decoupled from production); the use made
by them of information technology; and structural and cultural
considerations.
- The CAP "Health Check",[44]
including further decoupling and the abolition of a number of
several schemes (such as payments for energy crops and durum wheat,
various schemes for disposing of dairy products, and a simplification
of the rules on modulation),[45]
and abolition of the rules on set-aside.
Outlook
8.5 Despite the progress made so far, the Commission
says that it is necessary to continue the simplification process,
and it identifies a number of areas where it considers further
progress can be made. These include the possibility of introducing
common starting dates for legislative changes to the CAP; introducing
a single legal act governing cross-compliance by harmonising the
current rules; harmonising the legal framework for the communication
and conservation of information and documents; providing on-farm
training for its own officials to improve their understanding
of the challenges facing the sector; producing a Communication
on agricultural product quality as a follow up to the Green Paper[46]
it put forward in October 2008; adding new projects to its rolling
Action Plan, including a simplification of the administrative
arrangements for the hops sector; carrying out a more regular
review of the need to revise acts which have reached a certain
age; seeking to make legal acts easier to read; and continuing
to share best practice.
The Government's view
8.6 In her Explanatory Memorandum of 3 April 2009,
the Minister of State (Farming and the Environment) at the Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jane Kennedy) says that
the UK supports measures to simplify the CAP, and is strongly
in favour of encouraging the principles of Better Regulation within
the Commission. She adds that unnecessary administrative burdens
have an adverse economic effect on farming and related industries,
not just in the UK, but across the Community, and that the Government's
policy is therefore to encourage the Commission in its simplification
efforts, and to work with other Member States to demand more of
the Commission in this regard.
Conclusion
8.7 As this is an essentially factual document,
which does not require further consideration, we are therefore
clearing it. However, as it deals with an area of wider interest,
and its contents reflect a number of issues on which the UK has
taken an initiative, we think it right to draw it to the attention
of the House.
43 (30411) 5791/09: see HC 19-xi (2008-09), chapter
9 (18 March 2009). Back
44
(29193) 15351/07: see HC 16-vii (2007-08), chapter 1 (9 January
2008). Back
45
Deductions made from support payment to fund rural development
measures. Back
46
(30059) 14358/08: see HC 19-viii (2008-09), chapter 12 (25 February
2009). Back
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