The Agriculture Committee endorsed the latest package of proposals for improving the EU agricultural policy to better meet the expectations of farmers and consumers.

Amendments of the Committee of Agriculture to the so-called regulation on financing, management and monitoring were approved on Monday, April 8, with 28 votes in favor, 7 against, seven with two abstentions.

Now, the Reserve for Agricultural Crises, to help farmers with price or market volatility, needs to be funded as a complement to EU direct agricultural policy payments (CAP) and rural development financing.

His initial budget should be 400 million euros, while additional funds can be added every year along with any unused money from the previous year, until he reaches 1.5 billion euros.

If this is not enough, the so-called financial discipline mechanism should be used, which reduces direct payments to farmers, but only as a last resort and excluding the first 2,000 euros of payments.

Stricter fines are also introduced for repeated non-compliance with strict EU rules. If the beneficiaries repeatedly fail to comply with the rules, that is, legislative requirements regarding the environment, animal welfare or food quality, they should lose 10% of their rights (compared to the current 5%).

Beneficiaries will continue to lose 15% of the amount that they are entitled to in case of intentional violation of the rules. Also, measures have been approved to reduce the number of inspections.

Further, proposals approved by the Committee on Agriculture should be carefully examined by Parliament. This can happen only after the European elections on May 23-26. Then the Conference of Presidents (President of the European Parliament and leaders of political groups) may decide to send the text to a full room.

Otherwise, the new committee on agriculture will have to deal with this issue again to achieve the results defined in the national strategic plans.