Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Dacian Cioloş said: "These new rules should improve efficiency on State Aid issues by speeding up approval procedures and cutting red tape for public authorities dealing with State aids in the agriculture sector. These improvements should therefore enable potential beneficiaries to benefit from State aids more quickly".
Key features are:
- Allowing many more block exemptions by widening the scope of ABER. For example, it will be possible in future for Member States to grant aid to the forestry sector and to smaller enterprises in rural areas without having to go through lengthy notification and authorisation procedures. A simple information sheet to be sent to the Commission and ensuring compliance with the conditions of the new ABER will suffice.
- Widening the scope of GL. For example, it will be possible for Member States to grant aid to compensate for damage caused by protected animals and to purchase breeding animals for the improvement of the genetic quality of the herd.
- One window approach. Member States will only have to go through one administrative procedure vis-à-vis the Commission (i.e. a Rural Development Programme approval procedure, while merely informing the Commission of their block exemptions for the purpose of the State aid aspects) and, as far as possible, Member States will deal with only one department (or DG) inside the Commission when seeking clearance for their Rural Development Programmes.
- Reducing administrative burdens. The new rules proposed by the Commission significantly reduce the administrative burden for public authorities when dealing with State aids in the agriculture sector and speed up procedures. Therefore, potential beneficiaries will also be able to profit from the respective planned State aids more rapidly.
The texts of the ABER and GL are available here
