WRITTEN QUESTION E-1766/99

by António Campos (PSE) to the Commission

(11 October 1999)

Subject: The common agricultural policy

In his investiture speech, the President of the Commission undertook to ensure full transparency concerning the use of Union funds, as well as full cooperation with Parliament.

In the interests of the promised transparency and cooperation, can the Commission provide information on the following:

1. the level of total annual expenditure under the EAGGF (Guarantee), together with a list of the hundred biggest beneficiaries in each Member State;

2. the percentage of total EAGGF (Guarantee) payments to each Member State corresponding to those hundred beneficiaries;

3. the number of farmers benefiting from EAGGF (Guarantee) support in each Member State;

4. the total number of farmers in each Member State.

Supplementary answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(16 December 1999)

The breakdown, by Member State, of European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (Guarantee Section) expenditure for the 1998 financial year the latest year for which figures are available is:

>TABLE>

For further particulars, the Honourable Member should please refer to the 28th Financial Report on the EAGGF Guarantee Section(1) (which contains detailed information about the 1998 financial year).

The Commission nevertheless wishes to draw the Honourable Member's attention to the fact that the legal system which governs the charging of Community agricultural aid to the Community budget and, more specifically, to the EAGGF Guarantee Section (Regulation (EEC) No 729/70 of the Council of 21 April 1970 on the financing of the common agricultural policy(2) and Commission Regulation (EC) No 296/96 of 16 February 1996 on data to be forwarded by the Member States and the monthly booking of expenditure financed under the Guarantee Section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 2776/88(3)) provides for extensive delegation of tasks to the paying agencies in the Member States. It is therefore the paying agencies (accredited by Member States in accordance with Commission Regulation (EC) No 1663/95 of 7 July 1995 laying down detailed rules for the application of Council Regulation (EEC) No 729/70 regarding the procedure for the clearance of the accounts of the EAGGF Guarantee Section(4)) which undertake direct management of agricultural aid requests and which, consequently, hold all the information on recipients.

The Commission, on the other hand, does not have the information requested by the Honourable Member. For monitoring purposes, it receives from Member States the accounting data specifically stipulated in the rules. While it would be possible to process those data in order to show individual aid recipients, the Community rules on personal data protection (which, by virtue of Article 286 (formerly Article 213b) of the EC Treaty, are binding on the Community institutions) would not permit the Commission to disclose that information.

The Commission knows how many requests for assistance are submitted in each agricultural sector (which does not necessarily correspond to the number of farmers receiving Community aid, since a given farmer may ask for support from several aid schemes available under the common agricultural policy).

The Honourable Member should refer to the 28th Financial Report for the information requested on this point.

Lastly, according to the Commission's figures, the Community's agricultural sector (comprising agriculture, forestry, hunting and fisheries) employs 7,434 million people:

>TABLE>

(1) COM(1999) 568 final.

(2) OJ L 94, 28.4.1970.

(3) OJ L 39, 17.2.1996.

(4) OJ L 158, 8.7.1995.