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Article: COVID-19 - Member states urge MEPs to sign-off on spending unused cash for rural development
10 June 2020
This is taken from our IEG Policy dated 08/06/20.
Member states have called on the European Parliament to finalise
the criteria to use left-over rural development programmes to help
the agricultural sector deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
In April, the European Commission announced plans to ease the
economic impacts from the coronavirus pandemic on farmers by
increasing their access to cash from the CAP's rural development
programmes.
IHS Markit obtained a letter from the Council's Special
Committee on Agriculture, the main preparatory body for the
AGRIFISH Council, which said member states had now agreed on how
this money should be used.
This cash refers to each member state's rural development
programme for the 2014-2020. This is also known as the "second
pillar" of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and has a total
funding of €150 billion over the seven-year period. The Commission
has said there is €6 billion unspent by member states and wants to
use this money as a quick solution to address the COVID-19
financial burden being faced by farmers.
The Council's letter was addressed to Norbert Lins, the chair of
the European Parliament's agriculture committee (AGRI), and urged
farming MEPs to sign-off on their position so the extra financial
support can get to farmers as soon as possible.
Another source told IHS Markit that AGRI MEPs have very few
differences between the member states' position, making the
proposal likely to pass a vote in two weeks. This will set the tone
for a final plenary vote which will most likely see the
Commission's proposal become EU law and allow farmers to access the
extra cash in the coming months.
But not every member state will benefit from the same amount.
Some member states have stronger track records of implementing
their rural development measures and have a lot less financing
available than other countries.
EU data shows that Poland has only spent 40% of its rural
development funding while Ireland and Finland have less than 10%
remaining.
EU Agricultural Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski has said that
whatever money is available to member states can be used to support
investments at farm level "for processing, marketing or packaging
of food, or for the restoration of agricultural production
potential".