Simplificação & Política Agrícola Comum: uma nova abordagem 21 ments, SMR) and good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAEC), which were expanded over the years. As of 2015, ‘greening’ rules were introduced, linking 30% of direct subsidies to different sustainable land use practices. Moreover, the political priority of better targeting aid to certain groups of farmers and types of agriculture were accompanied by additional rules. The post-2020 reform of the CAP reinforced this trend of targeting support on the basis of environmental, economic or social criteria. The simplification response While some criticised the direction and speed of the changes of the CAP as such, many others, Member State authorities and farmers in particular, did not call into question the policy as such, but criticized its delivery and the complexity of its implementation. This criticism was not ignored. On the contrary, the Commission acknowledged it and has, together with the Council and the Parliament, on several occasions not only expressed the importance it attaches to policy simplification, but also acted to achieve this. The work on simplification has on the one hand aimed at alleviating the Commission and Member States’ administrative tasks involved in the implementation, management and control of CAP measures. And, on the other hand, simplification focussed on reducing the administrative burden imposed on those concerned by the measures – farmers, industry, trade, etc. The purpose of actions to simplify policies is to ensure that the mechanisms chosen to implement them and the necessary legal framework are never more complex than what is necessary to achieve the intended objectives effectively and efficiently. The simplification actions regarding the CAP over the past decades can be characterised as a process aimed at identifying and removing sources of unnecessary burdens. Waves of simplification Since the mid-1990s, successive CAP reforms have provided opportunities for simplification. An example was the integration of a large number of direct income support payments into a comprehensive decoupled single payment scheme. The creation of the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) aimed at keeping the administrative burden for farmers at a manageable level, while safeguarding the accuracy of farmer’s declared area and livestock headage claims, thus ensuring a high degree of financial security and protection of taxpayers’ money. The Commission has worked closely with national authorities to identify simplification possibilities. In a systematic analysis carried out in 1997–2000, around 200 suggestions were received from Member States’ Paying Agencies, and the Commission was able to take positive action on about half of them. The remainder were not acted upon because they would have entailed excessive costs, undermined sound financial management, or were not judged to offer real simplification potential. This exercise was repeated in 2001–2003. Member States’ suggestions were analysed by a simplification group established by the Commission, composed of representatives of national administrations. This exercise resulted in numerous simplifications integrated in the policy via the 2003 reform. Simplification was mentioned as one of the main objectives of the Agenda 2000 proposal. In particular, substantial simplification was proposed for the rural development policy, with the concentration of rural development measures in one single regulation. Moreover, simplification was achieved in a number of sectoral support schemes for olive oil, oil seeds, beef and milk. The 2003 reform brought radical change to the CAP, especially its income support policy. It removed the link between subsidies and production (‘decoupling’), enabling farmers to receive income support based on a “payment entitlement”. The reform introduced common rules for different support schemes, establishing the Single Payment Scheme (SPS), as well as limiting IACS to area-related checks, while complex controls on animal premiums became obsolete. It also established the Single Area Payment Scheme (SAPS) for new Member States and introduced the aforementioned mandatory cross-compliance obligations. SAPS allowed the granting of a flat rate per hectare of agricultural area, calculated by dividing the total available income support by the overall number of hectares used for agricultural production – a prelude to future reforms of the direct support system. Following this reform, the Commission published a Communication on CAP simplification in 2005, announcing an estimated reduction in administrative burden of 25% by 2012 through repeal of hundreds of obsolete acts, streamlining the CAP, and improving both law-making practices and IT systems. A CAP Simplification Action Plan was launched at the end of 2006, based on suggestions from Member States, stakeholders, producers’ organisations and the Commission itself. Some of the issues addressed were the abolition of licences for exports of beef without export refunds, the elimination of most of the obligations relating to import and export licences, amendment of the rules on cross-compliance, etc.
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