Agroaldea
The EU has demanded that Spain return one million euros of community funds allocated to banana cultivation through the Posei program, between the years 2008 and 2012, after noticing deficiencies in its management.
Brussels has addressed 18 community states to claim funds from the Common Agricultural Policy (PAC) “improperly spent“, that have an impact of 276 million euros.
These countries are, besides Spain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Holland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Greece, where the European Commission (CE) has decided to postpone the implementation of its decision until 2017.
Within the framework of the clearance of accounts procedure, The EC considers that different amounts declared by these Member States from the Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) or to the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) they must remain “excluded from Union financing”.
In the case of Spain, The Commission indicates that the financial impact amounts in total to 1.055.945,27 EUR.
The correction refers mainly to the Community Program to Support Agricultural Productions in the Canary Islands. (Posei) and, more specifically, to deficiencies in the Geographic Information System for the Identification of Agricultural Plots (SIGPAC) that affected the complementary aid for cultivated area of bananas.
In particular, For these deficiencies in the funds allocated to bananas, he claims Spain 1.000.914,98 EUR.
In parallel, The Community Executive has reported that it is going to return to European farmers 410 million euros from the CAP reserve fund, of which Spain will receive 53.390.829 EUR.
Brussels remembers that, since the reform of the CAP 2013, every year is deducted “a relevant amount” of direct payments to farmers to create an annual reserve to alleviate possible crises.
The Commission notes that, despite the difficulties that some sectors went through last year, “it was not necessary to touch the crisis reserve in 2015”.
Like this, the additional support measures decided over the course of 2015 could be financed with items available in the budget.
At the same time, The EC specifies that the support package 500 million euros that he announced last September is linked to the spending planned in the agricultural budget of 2016.
The concept of “crisis reserve”, as well as this refund mechanism, they agreed on 2013 during the CAP reform and were applied for the first time in the budget of 2014.
The deduction only affects direct payments to farmers above the 2.000 euros and does not apply in Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania, where direct payments are still being phased in.