13 Amendments of Luke Ming FLANAGAN related to 2018/0217(COD)
Amendment 16 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 1
Recital 1
(1) The Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled 'The Future of Food and Farming' of 29 November 2017 concludes that the Common Agricultural Policy (hereinafter ‘CAP’) should continue to step up its response to future challenges and opportunities, by boosting employment, growth and investment, fighting and adapting to climate change and bring, adapting them and transferring research and innovation out offrom the laboratories and onto fields and markets. The CAP should furthermore address citizens' concerns regarding sustainable agriculture production. There must be a fairer distribution of aid between production, producers, regions and countries, benefiting small and medium-sized farmers, with a coupling of aid to vulnerable sectors.
Amendment 17 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 1 a (new)
Recital 1 a (new)
(1 a) The agricultural sector must not face any financial repercussions as a result of political decisions, such as the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU or the funding of new European strategic policies.
Amendment 18 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 8
Recital 8
(8) In order to achieve the objectives of the CAP laid down in Article 39 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (the ‘Treaty’), and to comply with the principle of shared management, as provided for in Article 59 of Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012, Member States should ensure that the necessary governance systems are in place. Provision should therefore be made for designating the competent authority, paying agency, coordinating body, appeals procedure for final beneficiaries and certification body.
Amendment 19 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 8 a (new)
Recital 8 a (new)
(8 a) In accordance with Article 208 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the implementation of the CAP shall be in coherence with the objectives of development cooperation, including, inter alia, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Measures taken under this regulation should jeopardise neither the food production capacity and long-term food security of developing countries, in particular least developed countries (LDCs), nor the achievement of the Union's climate change mitigation obligations under the Paris Agreement.
Amendment 20 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 10
Recital 10
(10) Where a Member State accredits more than one paying agency, it should designate a single public coordinating body in order to ensure consistency in the management of Funds, to provide for a liaison between the Commission and the various accredited paying agencies, and to ensure that the information requested by the Commission concerning the operations of several paying agencies is provided promptly. The coordinating body should also take and coordinate actions with a view to resolving any deficiencies of a common nature encountered at national level and should keep the Commission informed of any follow-up. Paying agencies should develop their role as advisors to farmers and make efforts towards the simplification of procedures and ensuring compliance with standards at European level, in addition In recognition of New Delivery Model Member States shall establish a functionally independent mediation and appeals body comprising the required expertise and stakeholder representation;
Amendment 21 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 14
Recital 14
(14) With a view to ensuring that the amounts for the financing of the CAP comply with the annual ceilings, the financial discipline mechanism by which the level of direct support is adjusted, should be maintained. However, the threshold of EUR 2000 should be abolished. An agricultural reserve should be maintained to support the agricultural sector in the event of market developments or major crises affecting the agricultural production or distribution. The crisis reserve should be a functioning flexible tool, a mechanism which would enable the EU to better respond to any crisis that has EU-wide consequences on any of the agricultural sectors, especially in terms of the economy. Article 12(2)(d) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) [New Financial Regulation] foresees that non- committed appropriations may be carried over to to the following financial year only. In order to significantly simplify the implementation for beneficiaries and national administrations, a roll-over mechanism should be used, using any unused amounts of the reserve for crises in the agricultural sector established in 2020. For this purpose a derogation from Article 12(2)(d) is necessary, allowing for non- committed appropriations of the agricultural reserve to be carried over without time limitation to finance the agricultural reserve in the following financial year(s). Furthermore, as regards the financial year 2020, a second derogation is necessary as the total unused amount of the reserve available at the end of year 2020 should be carried over to the year 2021 to the corresponding line of the new agricultural reserve without being returned to the budgetary lines which cover direct payment interventions under the CAP Strategic Plan.
Amendment 22 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 24
Recital 24
(24) Member States should ensure that Union aid be paid to beneficiaries in good time so that they may use it efficiently. A failure by the Member States to comply with the payment deadlines laid down in Union law might create serious difficulties for the beneficiaries and could jeopardise the Union's yearly budgeting. Therefore, expenditure made without respecting deadlines for payments should be excluded from Union financingsubject to a premium granted to the final beneficiaries and, where appropriate, compensation for the economic loss caused by the late payment. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, the Commission should be empowered to provide for exceptions from this general rule with regard to both Funds.
Amendment 23 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 30
Recital 30
(30) As regards the multi-annual performance monitoring the Commission should also have the power to suspend payments. Accordingly in cases of delayed or insufficient progress towards targets, set out in the national CAP Strategic Plan, the Commission should be empowered to request the Member State concerned to take the necessary remedial actions in accordance with an action plan to be established in consultation with the Commission anlocal, regional, national and international stakeholders. Such action plans should containing clear progress indicators, by means of an implementing act. Where the Member State fails to submit or to implement the action plan or where the action plan is manifestly insufficient to remedy the situation, the Commission should have the power to suspend the monthly or interim payments, by means of an implementing act. Particular attention should be paid to respect of the Union’s environmental legislation as well as EU and Member States' commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Treaty obligations.
Amendment 24 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 31
Recital 31
(31) As had been the case under Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013, the Commission should be empowered to suspend payments when serious deficiencies exist in the governance systems, including non-compliance with Union basic requirements and unreliability of reporting. In addition, incoherence between CAP implementation and other EU policies and commitments, inter alia, the SDGs, climate, environment and human rights obligations, should be considered as a deficiency in Member states’ governance systems, It is, however, necessary to review the conditions for suspending payments in order to make the mechanism more efficient. The financial consequences of such suspensions should be decided in an ad-hoc conformity procedure.
Amendment 25 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 47
Recital 47
(47) The existing main elements of the integrated system and, in particular, the provisions concerning a system for identifying agricultural parcels, a geo- spatial and an animal-based application system, a system for identifying and registering payment entitlements, a system for recording the identity of beneficiaries and a control and penalties system should be maintained. Member States should continue to use data or information products provided by the Copernicus programme, in addition to information technologies such as GALILEO and EGNOS in order to ensure that comprehensive and comparable data is available throughout the Union for the purposes of monitoring agri-environment- climate policy and for the purposes of boosting the use of full, free and open data and information captured by Copernicus Sentinels satellites and services. To this end, the integrated system should include also an area monitoring system. The purpose of using such technology should be to limit the amount of on farm inspections that are required and reduce the administrative burden on farmers.
Amendment 27 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 57
Recital 57
(57) While Member States should be allowed to set out the details on penalties, those penalties should be proportionate, effective and dissuasive and should be without prejudice to other penalties laid down under Union or national law. To ensure an effective and coherent approach by Member States, it is necessary to provide for a minimum penalty rates at Union level for cases of non-compliance occurring for the first time due to negligence, while reoccurrence should lead to a higher percentage and intentionality mabut where such cases are repeated or intentional, this should potentially result in the total exclusion from the payment. To ensure proportionality of the penalties, where the non-compliance is of a minor nature and occurs for the first time, Member States should be allowed to introduce an early warning system and a right for beneficiaries to regularise their personal situation.
Amendment 30 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 7 – paragraph 1 – point f
Article 7 – paragraph 1 – point f
(f) studies on the CAP and evaluations of measures financed by the Funds, including improvement of evaluation methods and exchange of information on practices under the CAP, including consultations with local, regional, national, and international stakeholders, academic experts, NGOs, as well as studies carried out with the European Investment Bank (EIB);
Amendment 32 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 11 – paragraph 2
Article 11 – paragraph 2
2. The certification body shall have the necessary technical expertise, not solely from a financial management aspect but also related to achieving the intended aims of the interventions and payments rewarding public goods. All data and information used to enable the certifying bodies to give assurance that the objectives and targets of the CAP are indeed being reached, as well as the assumptions made, shall be made available transparently and shall be evidence based and verifiable by third parties. It shall be operationally independent from the paying agency and the coordinating body concerned as well as from the authority which has accredited that agency and the bodies responsible for the implementation and the monitoring of the CAP.