Commissie wil 265 miljoen euro aan landbouwsubsidies terug (en)

Met dank overgenomen van Europese Commissie (EC) i, gepubliceerd op vrijdag 16 juli 2010.

A total of € 265.02 million of EU farm money unduly spent by Member States is claimed back as a result of a decision adopted today by the European Commission. This money returns to the EU budget because of non-compliance with EU rules or inadequate control procedures on agricultural expenditure. Member States are responsible for paying out and checking expenditure under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the Commission is required to ensure that Member States have made correct use of the funds.

Commenting on the decision, Dacian Ciolos i, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, said: “We are working hard to achieve the best possible control of farm spending in order to verify that taxpayers money is not being misspent."

Main financial corrections

Under this latest decision funds will be recovered from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and United Kingdom. The most significant individual corrections are:

  • - 
    € 137.0 million1 charged to United Kingdom - England for weaknesses in the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS-GIS), in the administrative procedure as regards controls and cross checks, deficiencies in the risk analysis, and for incorrect calculation of payments and sanctions;
  • - 
    € 52.4 million2 charged to United Kingdom - England for, inter alia, insufficient checks of beneficiaries under the investors category of the National Reserve, transcription errors, absence of control with regard to new farmers;
  • - 
    € 33.7 million charged to United Kingdom - Northern Ireland for weaknesses related to the LPIS-GIS, and in on-the-spot checks and deficiencies in the application of regulatory sanctions;
  • - 
    € 11.0 million charged to Hungary for incorrect exchange rate and value added tax incorrectly included for establishing the purchase value of white sugar into public storage.

    For details on how the clearance of annual accounts system works, see MEMO/06/178

    and the factsheet "Managing the agriculture budget wisely", available on the internet at:

    http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fin/clearance/factsheet_en.pdf.

Details of the individual corrections, by Member State and by sector, are given in the tables attached (annexes I and II).

Annex I

Clearance of accounts of EAGF and EAFRD

Decision 33: Corrections by Member state

 

Sector and reason for correction

Amount in million EUR
   

Austria

  

Livestock premiums - deficiencies in the functioning of the control systems as regards the suckler cow premium and non-application of sanctions under the slaughter scheme

0.038

Rural development (Measure f. 'Agri-environment' and Measure e. 'Less-Favoured areas') - not taking into account the results of checks carried out until 2004 during administrative checks, and non-verification of the use of mineral fertilizers during the on-the-spot controls

1.049

Financial Audit - late payments and overshooting of financial ceilings

0.721

Denmark

  

Financial Audit - overshooting of financial ceilings and RD allocations

1.172

Financial Audit - overshooting of ceilings of RD allocations

3.820

Finland

  

Financial Audit - exceeding the rural development allocations for several measures of the Rural Development Programme 2000-2006

1.672

Germany

  

Fruits and vegetables - weaknesses in the control system concerning the recognition of producer organisations, overstatement of the value of marketed production, and ineligible expenditure as regards costs incurred for planting fruit trees

6.879

Area Aids - use of the inappropriate tool for area measurement during on-the-spot checks

1.373

Cross-compliance - weaknesses concerning the operation of key controls: farmers selected were not controlled for respect of all requirements for which they should have been controlled

1.103

Hungary

  

Export refunds - insufficient sampling and analysis of sugar exported with refunds as the Hungarian authorities did not meet the regulatory minimum control of 5%

0.134

Intervention storage - failure to make the necessary quality adjustment for in-situ take-over of cereals into public storage

0.335

Intervention storage - incorrect exchange rate used and value added tax incorrectly included for establishing the purchase value of white sugar into public storage

11.028

Financial Audit - overshooting of ceilings of SAPS 2005/2006, and separate sugar payment 2006 in the financial year 2007

1.554

Luxembourg

  

Area Aids - weaknesses in the control systems as regards LPIS-GIS and in the procedure for on-the-spot controls for the claim years 2005 and 2006

0.832

Slovakia

  

Intervention storage - failure to make the necessary quality adjustment for in-situ take-over of cereals into public storage

0.046

Slovenia

  

Rural Development - Measure f. 'Agri-environment' and Measure e. 'Less-Favoured areas' - late application of verifications and recovery procedure

2.281

Spain

  

Livestock premiums - late on-the-spot checks for special beef premium, weaknesses as regards administrative checks on slaughter premium, and for not applied sanctions

0.042

Area Aids - weaknesses in the on-the-spot checks and for incorrect application of reductions and exclusions pursuant to Art 51 of R.796/2004

5.739

Area Aids - weaknesses in the control system i.e. on-the-spot checks findings are not fully used to update the information in the LPIS-GIS

0.141

Olive Oil and other oils and fats - financing of olive-cultivation GIS: certain work declared to the EAGGF was not eligible for EU funding

1.297

United Kingdom - England

  

Area Aids - weaknesses in the LPIS-GIS, in the administrative procedure as regards controls and cross checks, deficiencies in the risk analysis, and for incorrect calculation of payments and sanctions

137.024

Area Aids - establishing single payment entitlements: inter alia, insufficient checks of beneficiaries under the investors category of the National Reserve, transcription errors, absence of control with regard to new farmers

52.433

United Kingdom - Northern Ireland

  

Area Aids - weaknesses related to the LPIS-GIS, weaknesses related to on-the-spot checks and the application of sanctions and retro-active recoveries of undue payments

33.722

United Kingdom - Scotland

  

Area Aids - inaccuracy of the LPIS-GIS and incorrect calculation of reductions and sanctions

0.514

United Kingdom

  

Financial Audit - overpayments in the Land Management Contract Schemes

0.072

TOTAL

265.021

Annex II

Clearance of accounts of EAGF and EAFRD

Decision 33: Corrections by Sector

 
 

In Million €
   

Area Aid

231.78
   

Animal Premiums

0.08
   

Cross-compliance

1.10
   

Export Refunds

0.13
   

Financial Audit

9.01
   

Fruits & vegetables

6.88
   

Olive Oil

1.30
   

Public Storage

11.41
   

Rural Development

3.33
   

TOTAL

265.02

1 :

Taking account of other financial corrections already applied on the budget lines concerned and amounts already credited by the UK, the financial impact of the correction is EUR 104.6 million.

2 :

As part of the amounts to be corrected has already been recovered in the context of a separate enquiry, the net correction (cash effect) amounts to EUR 46.5 million.

Meer over...