Brussels presents a proposal to alleviate administrative barriers in the agricultural sector

Brussels is trying to respond to the demands of farmers that in recent weeks have transformed into protests in the main European capitals. As anticipated, the European Commission has presented a series of proposals to reduce administrative obstacles of the agricultural sector with a view to it being debated in the Council of Agriculture Ministers of the EU, next Monday, February 26.

Specifically, the Community Executive has sent to the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU a document in which it proposes a series of short and medium-term measures for bureaucratic simplification that serve as a starting point for the debate next Monday. Measures include simplifying cross-compliance requirements, rhalve supervision processes or reformulate the concepts of “exceptional circumstances”.

In this sense, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has shown Brussels’ commitment to “solutions that relieve the pressure that our agricultural workers currently suffer.” The idea is to “relieve the administrative burden on our farmers to help them guarantee food security for European citizens. The simplification of our agricultural policies is a constant priority, both at EU and national level.

The European Commission has proposed simplifying some of the conditionality requirements that farmers have to comply with. It refers to the basic standards to be met in both agricultural and environmental terms to receive support from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which have proven difficult to meet in certain circumstances.

It also proposes changing the rules that require establishing permanent pasture areas in the EU. The regulations state that farmers who were forced to convert their cropland to pasture land to deal with disruptions in the meat sector may have to permanently convert this arable land to pasture. This is how the European Commission proposal will present an amendment to this regulation in March to ensure that the structural changes caused by the market reorientation do not penalize farmers. The idea is to convert less land into permanent pasture and mitigate farmers’ loss of income.

In addition, Brussels proposes simplifying the methodology of certain supervision processes to reduce visits to institutions by half. agricultural holdings by national administrations. The idea is that a reduction in visits will allow farmers to dedicate more time to their work and, at the same time, encourage these reviews to be carried out through satellite image analysis using Copernicus technology.

On the other hand, the European Commission wants to review the concepts of force majeure and exceptional circumstances so that farmers who cannot comply with the requirements of the CAP due to circumstances beyond their control, such as droughts or floods. The measure will improve farmers’ access to CAP financing in the event of adverse circumstances.

The Community Executive also refers to measures to reduce administrative barriers, especially those that affect small farmers. Among them, he proposes exempting farmers fromon farms less than 10 hectares of the controls of the conditionality requirements, which would affect 65% of the CAP beneficiaries and 9.6% of the area that receives this type of support.

Another action that the community Executive will take to continue the exchange with the agricultural sector is a online consultation aimed directly at farmers. A type of survey in which it seeks to identify the main concerns and understand what are the main elements of administrative complexity of the current rules of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The consultation is expected to have drawn up findings by the summer that will provide a full picture of the bureaucratic hurdles farmers face, in an analysis to be published in August.

“With this series of measures, we are fulfilling the promise we made to our farmers to accelerate this debate. I am looking forward to hearing the opinions of our Member States,” added the head of the Community Executive.