WRITTEN QUESTION E-0005/97 by Daniela Raschhofer (NI) to the Commission (22 January 1997)

Subject: Changes in the agricultural subsidy system

Further to the event entitled 'Österreich Start der EU-Information - Daheim in Europa', the pragmatic announcements by Mr Fischler, the Commissioner for Agriculture, implied that far-reaching changes and new arrangements can be expected in the agricultural subsidy system, primarily concerning rural areas as a whole and moving away from the separate role of agriculture in rural areas.

With regard to the relatively short period left for Austrian agriculture up to 1999, a crucial year which will also involve pressure for change in agriculture, the Commission is asked to give detailed and clear answers to the following questions:

1. Are there specific plans or even hypothetical ideas to reduce, modify or even abolish without replacement the livestock and area premiums?

2. What measures are actually or theoretically being considered with reference to the 5a and 5b programmes, i.e. in the framework of the structural funds?

3. How does the Commission envisage the new pattern of the relationship between the EAGGF and the Structural Fund?

4. What effects will the EU enlargement to the East have on the Objective 1 region of Burgenland and Austrian areas in general?

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission (26 February 1997)

1. The reform papers presented by Member States, farm groups and environmental groups contain plenty of proposals to modify livestock and area premiums, and to modulate or link them, where appropriate, to environmental requirements. Specifically the latter idea was endorsed by the Commission as an interesting option. However, concrete proposals have neither been presented nor are about to be presented in the near future. The Commission is currently carefully analysing the implications of different options. However abolishing the livestock and area premiums without replacement is not an option envisaged by the Commission.

2 and 3. Objective 5(a) and objective 5(b) as well as the role of the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund in joint collaboration with the other structural funds form a part of the general reflection on the future of the common agricultural policy and rural development policy in particular. This policy will be characterized by an integrated approach to sustainable and diversified rural development backed up by adequate local financial and administrative resources. The Commission will pursue this approach for all rural development measures, including those falling under objectives 5(a) and 5(b), on the basis of the principles of subsidiarity, simplification and transparency.

4. Independent of the envisaged enlargement towards the East, structural policy has to be revised at the end of the present programming period when the principle of concentration and the available financial resources will be decisive factors.

Structural policy aims to improve the socio-economic situation in the eligible zones and so to strengthen economic cohesion. A successful structural policy could have the result that some eligible regions will lie above the eligibility criteria.