I to III.

Agri-environment measures (AEM) are central elements of the common agricultural policy (CAP) responding to the concerns of society with respect to the protection and improvement of the environment in rural areas. The Commission welcomes the Court's report in this respect. In response to the Court's findings the Commission would like to emphasise: — at the beginning of each programming period, the Commission analyses the rural development programmes as submitted by the Member States. The Commission issued useful guidelines for its desk officers which allowed them to assess most of the agri-environmental measures on their verifiability. Furthermore, the different responsibilities under shared management should be emphasised: the Commission sets out the legal framework and Member States are responsible for proposing verifiable measures (1). The fact that a programme is approved by the Commission does not relieve a Member State of its responsibilities (see paragraphs 32 to 35), — the Clearance of Accounts Directorate organises its audit work on the basis of an instrument of central risk analysis covering all agricultural expenditure. It takes into account different risk elements, including the observations of the Court and the length of time since the last audit and, determines the audit priorities. On the basis of this risk assessment, it was determined in previous years that priority should be given to other audits. However, the following elements demonstrate that the Clearance of Accounts of DG AGRI has already in different ways assessed the systems in place for AEM: — the agri-environmental measures were audited in all Member States in 1997 to 1999 and follow-up audits were carried out in 2000 to 2002 in those Member States for which financial corrections had been proposed. The Commission considers that this provided a reasonable level of assurance about the compliance of the systems in place and, in particular, about the implementation of appropriate control systems for the different sub-measures, including those considered of limited verifiability, — moreover, the new basic requirement of controlling the respect of good farming practices, introduced by Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999, was subject of a thorough examination during the enquiry on less-favoured areas carried out in most of the Member States in 2003 and 2004 (see paragraph 39), — the Commission was constrained by the fact that it did not have the legal base to carry out inspections in the Member States. Nevertheless, it has followed up the organic farming inspection system in the Member States by means of their supervision reports and other sources of information. Most operators are inspected each year as evidenced by Member States’ reports. In addition, to the extent that organic farming measures are co-financed by the EAGGF in the framework of rural development, the audit services of DG AGRI, as part of their ongoing enquiry on AEM (2005 to 2006), are carrying out a partial examination of the supervisory system in place in the regions and Member States audited. — The annual supervision reports give a number of indications on the inspection system in place such as confirmation of the number of inspection visits carried out and the number of infringements notified. Nevertheless, the Commission identified in the European Action Plan on Organic Food and Farming the need to improve the quality of the supervision reports. The issue of supervision is part of ongoing work on a review of (EEC) No Regulation 2092/91. It is also to be linked with Regulation (EC) No 882/2004 (2) to be applicable from 2006, which reinforces the framework for the organisation of official controls and supervision at Member States’ level (see paragraphs 47 to 49). — The Commission took note of the mission reports on all seven Member States concerned. It also considered other sources of information relating to the inspection system in the Member States (see paragraphs 50 to 54).