The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
BPS failed to simplify process, say EU auditors
The Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) has failed to simplify the process of awarding farmers financial support to aid viable food production, according to a report by EU auditors.
The report by the European Court of Auditors concluded that although the BPS scheme was “operationally on track”, its impact on simplification, targeting and the convergence of aid levels was limited.
The BPS, which awards around 18 billion euros every year to four million farmers across Europe, was introduced as part of the 2013 Common Agricultural Policy reforms.
The auditors said that the rules chosen by member states sometimes added complexity to the scheme, increased the burden on national administrations, and allowed some farmers to realise windfall profits.
In addition, the different approaches by member states to define the terms ‘agricultural land’ and ‘agricultural activity’ often created significant implementation problems .
Some farmers maintained particularly high support levels resulting from past levels of subsidy, said the auditors.
“The Basic Payment Scheme is an important source of income for many farmers, but it has inherent limitations,” said João Figueiredo, the member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the report.
“It does not take account of market conditions, use of agricultural land or the individual circumstances of the holding, and is not based on an analysis of the overall income situation of farmers,” he added.
He said in some cases entitlement values were inaccurate, calculated only provisionally, or based on estimates.
Looking beyond the current BPS period, which runs until 2020, the auditors have recommended that the European Commission analyses the factors impacting income for all groups of farmers, their income support needs and the value of the public goods that they provide.
The auditors say that from the outset the EU Commission should “link the proposed measures to appropriate operational objectives and baselines against which performance could be compared”.