Regulation 2008/146 - Amendment of Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 establishing common rules for direct support schemes under the common agricultural policy and establishing certain support schemes for farmers and Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 46/1

Experience has shown the need to provide for a measure of tolerance for minor cases of non-compliance with the cross compliance requirements where the severity, extent and permanence of such non-compliance would not justify an immediate reduction of the direct payments to be granted. Such a measure of tolerance should nonetheless include an appropriate follow-up by the competent national authority until the non-compliance has been remedied. Moreover, applying reductions to very low initial amounts of direct payments may prove burdensome in comparison to any deterrent effect to be gained. As a consequence, a suitable threshold should be defined, below which Member States may decide not to apply any reduction, provided that the actions to ensure that the farmer remedies the findings of non-compliance concerned are taken by the competent national authority.

Article 44(3) of Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 (2) provides that farmers must keep the parcels corresponding to the eligible hectare at their disposal for a period of at least 10 months. Experience has shown that this condition risks constraining the functioning of the land market and creates significant administrative work for the farmers and administrative services involved. Nonetheless, in order to ensure that double claims are not made for the same land, a date should be fixed on which the parcels should be at the farmer’s disposal. It would be appropriate for Member States to determine that date which should be no later than the date fixed for amendment of the aid application. The same rule should also be applied for the Member States applying the single area payment scheme.

As a consequence of the reduction of the period during which the farmer shall keep at his disposal the parcels corresponding to the eligible hectare to a single day for both the single payment scheme and the single area payment scheme, the rules on liability under cross compliance, in particular in the case of transfer of land during the calendar year concerned, should be clarified. It should therefore be made clear that the farmer who submits an aid application should be held liable towards the competent authority with regard to any failure to fulfil the cross compliance requirements in the calendar year concerned for all agricultural land declared in the aid application. This should not preclude private law arrangements between the farmer concerned and the person to whom or from whom the agricultural land was transferred.

Article 71h of Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 provides that, in the framework of the single payment scheme, the new Member States within the meaning of Article 2(g) of that Regulation may fix different per unit values of entitlements to be allocated for hectares of grassland or permanent pasture and for any other eligible hectares as identified on 30 June 2003 or on 30 June 2005 in the case of Bulgaria and Romania. The new Member States have established an identification system for agricultural parcels in compliance with Article 20 of that Regulation. However, due to technical difficulties when switching over to that...