A majority of agriculture ministers in the EU have again supported a call to increase the threshold for ‘de minimis’ state aid for the agriculture sector.
Under EU rules, state aid is generally prohibited as it can distort competition. Most state aid paid to businesses requires approval from the European Commission.
However, under the de minimis rule, small amounts of state aid can be paid without commission approval.
In general, de minimis state aid cannot exceed €300,000 across a rolling three-year period. However, for primary food producers, this limit is reduced to €20,000 over three years, or €25,000 for member states with a central register, which Ireland has.
At a Council of EU meeting of agriculture and fishery ministers yesterday, the German delegation presented a document calling for an increase in de minimis aid for farmers.
This document said that a proposal from the commission to increase the €20,000 threshold to €37,000 is not sufficient “in view of difficulties faced by European farmers since the last revision of the [de minimis] regulation [in 2019]”.
The challenges cited in the German submission include inflation-induced increases in production costs; animal and plant health costs (which the submission said was partially a result of bans on certain plant protection products); and additional costs caused by adverse weather events.
For those reasons, the German delegation called for an increase in the state aid threshold per primary producer to €50,000 over three years.
The commission also proposed to introduce a mandatory central register for de minimis aid from January 1.
The German document welcomed this, saying it would increase transparency, but added that the objective is only achievable as long as the commission provides an “EU-wide and robust IT system”.
The call from the German delegation, which was supported by France, received the backing of the majority of member states at yesterday’s council meeting.
Other issues that came up at the meeting included a stocktaking of CAP strategic plans, and the market situation for agricultural produce.
On CAP, the meeting was told that Ireland is “still working on our IT reporting system” in relation to the CAP Strategic Plan.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue told the council that it is understood that other member states are also working on their systems too.
During the council’s “stocktaking” on CAP, Minister McConalogue said there was still an opportunity for the commission to “simplify the process and provide much needed explanations and make necessary changes”.