Om rådsmøde vedrørende anvendelse af artikel 69 i midtvejsreformen af den fælles landbrugspolitik.

Spm. nr. S 4782

Til fødevareministeren (19/7 04) af:

»Vil ministeren redegøre for forløbet af rådsmødet den 19. juli 2004 vedrørende anvendelsen af artikel 69 - specielt med hensyn til tidsgrænsen (1. august 2004) og forelæggelsen af ministerens brev, hvis indhold bedes oplyst - og anvendelsen af mere fleksible regler?«

Spørgsmål om anvendelse af artikel 69 i Rådets forordning (EF) nr. 1782/2003 figurerede ikke på dagsordenen for Rådsmødet den 19. juli 2004.

Derimod havde jeg lejlighed til i randen af Rådsmødet at drøfte sagen kort med landbrugskommissæren, ligesom jeg har skrevet til Kommissionen den 16. juli 2004, jf. vedlagte kopi.

Jeg vender tilbage til spørgsmålet, når der foreligger en officiel reaktion fra Kommissionen.

Dear Mr. F. Fischler,

The horizontal Council Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003, Article 69, stipulates that Member States may retain up to 10 percent of the direct payments to an individual sector and grant these funds as additional payments in the sector for specific purposes.

The implementing rule of Article 69, Commission Regulation (EC) No 795/2004, stipulates that Member States wanting to apply Article 69 shall notify the Commission by 1 August of the year preceding the first year of application of the single payment scheme at the latest.

As I have indicated earlier Denmark plans to implement the single payment scheme from the year 2005 meaning that we before 1 August 2004 will have to notify the Commission about the use of Article 69 in Denmark. Denmark has chosen to implement the single payment scheme without making use of the possibilities of Article 69. A reason for this Danish position is the lack of flexibility, which – from the Danish point of view – characterizes the implementing rules of Article 69.

On the other hand Denmark will not rule out that a more flexible implementation of Article 69 will make it easier to consider a future application of Article 69 in Danish agricultural policy.

Therefore I will ask you and the Commission to strongly reconsider the possibility to make an amendment to Commission Regulation (EC) No 795/2004 in order to make the use of Article 69 more flexible. This may e.g. include a possibility to disregard the obligation to notify use of Article 69 before the implementation of the single payment scheme, flexibility in the yearly value of the percentage of retention, a possibility to distribute the funds across different sectors and to have the discretion to distribute the funds in a different year to which they were collected.

Yours sincerely,
Mariann Fischer Boel