A total of 161.9 million EUR of EU farm money unduly spent by Member States is to be claimed back, following a decision adopted today by the European Commission. The money will be recovered because of inadequate control procedures or non-compliance with EU rules 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, Mariann Fischer Boel, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, said: "This is a vital process in ensuring that taxpayers' money is used properly and that all unduly spent amounts are recovered. We have made enormous progress over recent years in improving controls and I am determined that these efforts will continue in the future."
Main financial corrections
Under this latest decision reform of the system for recovering unduly spent CAP money, funds will be recovered from Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The most significant individual corrections are:
- 77.13 million EUR charged to France because direct aid was paid for ineligible land, and sanctions were not applied;
- 33.36 million EUR charged to Spain for the weaknesses concerning the key control on the management of production potential, i.e. the ban on vine planting without the prior award of replanting or new planting rights;
- 9.41 million EUR charged to Italy for incomplete checks on products withdrawn for destruction, late checks and insufficient rate of checks on accounting and documentation, insufficient checks on the quantity marketed, weaknesses in checks on product quality; no surveillance or verification of delegated controls;
- 8.68 million EUR charged to France for lack of checks on projects funded by means of soft loans, several deficiencies concerning the check of minimum standards, lack of a specific aid exclusion or reduction regime;
- 8.07 million EUR charged to Greece for imprecise identification of parcels receiving aid, poor application of cross checks against the IACS systems, deficient on-the-spot controls of surfaces and of Good Farming Practices.
Source: European Commission - Agriculture News Digest 27.07.2006
