Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) money
10.4.2014
Question for written answer E-004484-14
to the Commission
Rule 117
Marc Tarabella (S&D)
As part of a procedure known as clearance of accounts, the Commission is demanding that the Member States pay back a total of EUR 318 million. This corresponds to the amount of irregular CAP payments made by the Member States. However, given that some of this money has already been recovered from the Member States, the financial impact of today’s decision will be around EUR 315 million. These funds are being returned to the EU due to non‐compliance with EU rules or to the inadequacy of procedures for verifying agricultural expenditure. If it is the responsibility of the Member States to make payments and to verify CAP expenditure, then it is the Commission’s responsibility to make sure that the funds provided to the Member States are used correctly.
The decision that has just been adopted provides for the recovery of funds from 11 Member States, namely Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Finland and the United Kingdom. The most important corrections concern the following sums:
- —EUR 238.90 million (the financial impact is lower in view of the sums already recovered from the Member State or returned by the Member State: EUR 237.83 million).
- —EUR 12.94 million (financial impact: EUR 12.04 million) to be paid back by Portugal in view of shortcomings related to conditionality.
- —EUR 10.03 million to be repaid by France in view of shortcomings in the implementation of the ‘young farmer’ measure and in the oversight of subsidised loans.
1. Can the Commission confirm this information?
2. Would it not be logical to reinvest this money in agricultural dossiers?
OJ C 377, 23/10/2014