WRITTEN QUESTION P-3527/03 by Rijk van Dam (EDD) to the Commission. Court of Auditors Special Report No 4/2003 on rural development: support for less-favoured areas.
Date: 2003-11-20
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: agricultural expenditure, aid to agriculture, less-favoured agricultural area, regional farm policy, rural development, statistical method, statistical nomenclature

C 78 E/576

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

27.3.2004

The proposed rules on animal transport are in line with the most recent requirements in the field of

7.
public health and food safety.

The starting point of the Commission proposal for space allowances is the opinion of the Scahaw

8.
which recommended substantial increase of the space allowances.

9.
Great variations in climatic conditions that could occur during long distance transportation (such as
the ones from the United Kingdom to Greece during summertime) are proved to affect the welfare of the
animals in the vehicles. The Scahaw issued an opinion in 1999 on Standards for the Microclimate inside
Animal Transport Road Vehicles. The opinion is reflected in the ventilation and temperature requirements
for long distance journeys adopted in the proposal. The panel on animal health and animal welfare of the
European Food Security Authority (EFSA) is currently carrying out an evaluation on whether the opinion
of 1999 needs updating on the basis of new scientific knowledge.

10.
Based on Article 8 of Directive 91/628/EEC (4) Member States shall provide to the Commission
every year the number of inspections carried out on the protection of animals during transport. Such
reports shall include details on infringements but not on the number of successful prosecutions. As for
infringements a table providing data declared by each Member State in 2001 is being sent to the
Honourable Member and to Parliament’s Secretariat. However, the Commission in 2000 reported to the
Council and to the Parliament (5) the difficulty of interpreting this information since no harmonised
methodology is provided in the current Community legislation. The Commission proposal aims to remedy
this deficiency.

(1) COM(2003) 425 final.
(2) Chapter VI of Annex I to the proposal.
(3) Chapter IV of Annex I to the proposal.
(4) Council Directive 91/628/EEC of 19 November 1991 on the protection of animals during transport and amending

Directives 90/425/EEC and 91/496/EEC, OJ L 340, 11.12.1991.

(5) COM(2000) 809 final.

(2004/C 78 E/0609)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3527/03

by Rijk van Dam (EDD) to the Commission

(20 November 2003)

Subject: Court of Auditors Special Report No 4/2003 on rural development: support for less-favoured areas

In paragraph 77 of its Special Report 4/2003 (1), the Court of Auditors of the EC states, inter alia, that the
Commission should perform an in-depth review of the existing classifications of all the less-favoured areas.
In its reply the Commission states, inter alia, that the evaluation of the existing programmes will yield new
information for use in a review.

1.
On the basis of the new information obtained by means of monitoring and evaluation, has the
Commission concluded that the existing classifications of less-favoured areas are no longer valid and that
overcompensation therefore needs to be prevented or is inevitable in the existing programmes?

2.
If the Commission can confirm this, what corrective action has it now taken? If the Commission
denies that the classifications are invalid, can it provide the requisite information for this and can it
explicitly state that the existing classifications are valid and can be applied accurately so that the possibility
of overcompensation may reasonably be deemed to be ruled out?

Does

the Commission now have a clear and workable definition of

3.
the phenomenon of
overcompensation, as this concept is not defined in Directive 75/268/EEC (2) or Regulation 1257/1999 (3)
or in ancillary legislation?

27.3.2004

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Official Journal of the European Union

C 78 E/577

Is the Commission confident (cid:1) and can it prove (cid:1) that expenditure under the LFA scheme is now
4.
legal and regular? Can it also provide information to show that the enormous disparities in amounts of
compensation per hectare or per farm between regions and Member States are justified?

(1) OJ C 151, 27.6.2003, p. 1.
(2) OJ L 128, 19.5.1975, p. 1.
(3) OJ L 160, 26.6.1999, p. 80.

Answer given by Mr Fischler on behalf of the Commission

(18 December 2003)

Mid-term evaluations for the current rural development programming period are due for presentation by
the Member States before the end of the year and will include the less favoured area measure. A conspectus
of these evaluations will be available in 2004. Further information can be expected from updatings of the
mid-term evaluations and from the ex-post evaluations. The evaluations at present available to the
Commission are for the previous programming period (1994-1999).

The final report (Evaluation of the Regulation (EC) No 950/97 (1) measures for improvement of agricultural
structures) contains the following conclusions on compensation:

(cid:1) the support system for the less favoured areas has clearly achieved its purpose of compensating for the

impact of natural disadvantages on production costs,

(cid:1) the lack of uniformity in definition of support in these areas can however be considered as a
contributory factor in undercompensation in most of them and in overcompensation in those where
the handicap is small or even insignificant when comparison is made with ‘non-less favoured areas’ in
the Member State.

The list of less favoured areas was finalised in the 90s and has changed very little since then. Under the
new Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 (2) it is the Member States themselves that delimit the areas using the
common criteria set in that Regulation. The quantitative criteria in the explanatory memorandum to
Directive 75/268/CEE (3) are still used as guidelines for classification. Before the new rural development
Regulation for the next programming period is proposed all measures, including that for less favoured
areas, will be reviewed in the light of the evaluations available.

Article 15 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 states that allowances are to compensate adequately for the
handicap (principle of proportionality) but must not go beyond what is adequate, i.e. overcompensation is
prohibited.

It falls to the Member States to put the principle of compensation into practice. Differences between them
in amount granted per hectare reflect differences in productivity per hectare and differences in the support
per farm reflect structural disparities linked to farm size.

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 950/97 of 20 May 1997 on improving the efficiency of agricultural structures, OJ L 142,

2.6.1997.

(2) Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European
Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and amending and repealing certain Regulations, OJ L 160,
26.6.1999.

(3) Council Directive 75/268/EEC of 28 April 1975 on mountain and hill farming and farming in certain less favoured

areas, OJ L 128, 19.5.1975.