30 Nov 2020, 11:00 Comissão Europeira 489

€434 million to be reimbursed to European farmers

The European Commission adopted on 25 November 2020 a regulation allowing Member States to reimburse €434 million to European farmers. This amount was originally deducted during the 2020 budget year from farmers’ direct payments under the common agricultural policy (CAP) to create this year’s so-called agricultural crisis reserve.

As the crisis reserve was not used in financial year 2020, the amounts deducted from direct payments this year may be reimbursed to farmers by Member States as from 1 December 2020.

The concept of the agricultural crisis reserve and its reimbursement mechanism was agreed in the 2013 CAP reform. It was applied for the first time in the 2014 budget year. The deduction only applies to income support above € 2,000 and does not yet apply to Croatia for the 2020 budget year. This is because of the process of phasing in of support levels post-accession to the EU. For Croatia, having joined the union in 2013, the income support under the CAP is not yet fully phased in.