EFSI and agriculture

16.11.2016

Question for written answer E-008599-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Nicola Caputo (S&D)

The mid-term review of the Juncker Plan, published in June, hints at a possible danger that the EFSI is being focused solely on integration with the ERDF and the ESF, and the EAFRD is consequently being relegated into the background.

EFSI-related procedures need to be simplified, and the EAFRD should be dovetailed more fully into financial engineering, starting with the percentage of EAFRD funding to be linked to revolving mechanisms in collaboration with the EIB.

— Does the Commission not think, therefore, that special financial instruments should be devised for the agricultural sector, first and foremost for young farmers setting up new business ventures without collateral?— Does it not consider that the rules on state aid in the agricultural sector should be made more flexible when structural funds and financial instruments are to be used, one way to do that being to raise the de minimis thresholds for interest subsidies?— Does it not believe that it should tackle bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles in order to enable CAP first‐ and second-pillar payments to be combined with the EFSI?