Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-14-Speech-4-111"
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"en.20010614.4.4-111"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I should like to start by thanking you for your detailed report on this proposal. Honourable Members, the Court of Auditors complained in its opinion on the Agenda 2000 reforms that the authorities in the Member States disburse relatively modest sums in aid to a relatively large number of farmers at considerable administrative expense. Quite a few Member States have expressed similar views at working party meetings chaired by the Agriculture Directorate-General.
The present proposal is the Commission's answer to these complaints. It should make life easier both for the national authorities and, more importantly, for the farmers who are entitled to use this simplified system in future. The most important advantage for the farmers is that they will have to fill in fewer forms and the conditions which they must meet in order to obtain aid will be much simpler. For the national authorities, the time needed to process applications and carry out controls will be cut.
I am hugely in favour of simplifying the common agricultural policy. This proposal is a first step in this direction; it is something completely new and, having concentrated in the past on simplifying provisions which then prove to be difficult, complicated or too expensive to apply, this is a new approach, although we shall certainly continue to work on simplifying provisions already in force.
As numerous aspects of the small producers' regulations have yet to be tested, we must ensure that this is an endeavour which can initially be implemented up to 2005. This is also why the Commission has deliberately limited the scope of the regulation to a specific selection of direct payments and set a relatively low ceiling in order to preclude any risks and ensure that it stays in the Court of Auditors' good books.
This regulation will be evaluated before the trial period ends and I sincerely hope that this evaluation will then form the basis for a more comprehensive, more ambitious, long-term solution.
Now to the individual proposed amendments. The environmental requirements in Regulation 1259/99 will continue to apply because they are already covered in the regulation, meaning that Amendment No 1 is redundant. The 20% increase to payments proposed in Amendments Nos 2 and 3 will, I think, cause problems. First, the regulation would no longer be without any impact on the budget and we would have to reckon on additional costs of about EUR 100 million per annum.
Secondly, the sole purpose of the proposal is to find a simpler way of getting current aid to farmers. May I also point out that farmers can, in any case, opt to use the average of the last three years or the previous year as a basis. It is true that, to an extent, we are in a transitional stage. However, this transition has closed today for all surface area premiums. As far as beef premiums are concerned, there will be a further increase next year. I can confirm that. If a farmer really feels that he would lose money here, then he is entitled to file a normal application again this year and not to join the global payment system for another year. In other words, it is not the Commission's intention to disadvantage farmers. Nor is there, however, any justification for increasing premiums through the back door.
The Commission can accept the suggestion in Amendment No 4 to raise the proposed ceiling above EUR 1 000 but will have to reject Amendment No 5. The decision to apply this system must be taken at the trial stage at national level when the Member States are given the opportunity to apply the small producer regulation on a regional basis."@en1
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