Farming – Photo © Otto Durst – Fotolia
(STRASBOURG) – The EU Parliament gave its green light Wednesday to a review of the common agriculture policy (CAP) designed to ease the administrative burden on EU farmers such as in cases of extreme weather.
MEPs were adopting the draft law with technical modifications proposed by the EU Council and endorsed by the Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture on 15 April 2024.
The CAP review changes the rules for three environmental conditionalities farmers must adhere to in order to receive funding. It also provides more flexibility for EU countries to grant exemptions from CAP standards if there are problems with applying them and in case of issues caused by extreme weather. Small farms under 10 hectares would be exempt from controls and penalties for non-compliance with some CAP rules.
Parliament had decided not to object to a Commission proposal complementing the CAP simplification package. According to the text, member states will have more leeway when applying the CAP requirement to keep the ratio of permanent grassland to agricultural area above 5% compared to 2018 (GAEC 1).
The regulation now has to be approved by Council. The EU’s Belgian Presidency has informed Parliament that if MEPs endorse the proposal in the form agreed by the Council’s Special Committee on Agriculture, the Council will adopt the same text.
Following the approval by the Council, the law will be published in the EU Official Journal and enter immediately into force. Farmers will already be allowed to apply revised environmental “conditionalities” for their claims for EU financial support in 2024.
The adopted text will be available here (24.04.2024), European Parliament
