The Council concluded today an informal deal with the European Parliament on how to extend current CAP rules until the end of 2022 and disperse the extra €8.07 billion of the European recovery instrument to European farmers. This informal agreement is a follow-up to an initial agreement in June.
The informal deal outlines a split of the recovery money within the next two years: 30% of €8.07 billion will be available in 2021 and 70% in 2022. It also tasks member states to secure around one third of the total budget (37%) for green and animal welfare measures and more than half of the total budget (55%) for social and digital transformation measures. The negotiators expect that these measures would help speed up the transition to practices such as precision and smart farming, improve access to high-quality ICT in rural areas and strengthen local markets.
The negotiators also agreed to extend the application of the exceptional temporary support to farmers and SMEs affected by the COVID-19 crisis by six months. They also agreed that the EU’s outermost regions and the smaller Aegean islands will keep receiving in 2021 and 2022 the same amounts of financial support as outlined in the current rules.
The negotiated text still needs to be endorsed by the Council’s Special Committee on Agriculture and will then be submitted for final adoption by the Council and the European Parliament, as soon as possible.
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