Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 and Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 as regards the aid scheme for the supply of fruit and vegetables, bananas and milk in the educational establishments Proposal for a COUNCIL REGULATION amending Regulation (EU) No 1370/2013 determining measures on fixing certain aids and refunds related to the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products - Delegations' comments to the Presidency revised texts - Main contents

Document date	21-09-2015
Publication date	23-09-2015
Reference	12217/15
From	General Secretariat of the Council
External link	original article
Original document in PDF

Council of the European Union

Brussels, 21 September 2015

PUBLIC

(OR. en)

12217/15

Interinstitutional Files: 2014/0014 (COD) i

2014/0013 (NLE) i LIMITE

AGRI 480 AGRIFIN 81 AGRIORG 65 CODEC 1213

NOTE

From: General Secretariat of the Council

To: Delegations

No. prev. doc.: 11603/15

No. Cion doc.: 5958/14, 6054/14

Subject: Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND

OF THE COUNCIL amending Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 i and Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 i as regards the aid scheme for the supply of fruit and vegetables, bananas and milk in the educational establishments

Proposal for a COUNCIL REGULATION amending Regulation (EU) No 1370/2013 i determining measures on fixing certain aids and refunds related to the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products

• - 

  Delegations' comments to the Presidency revised texts

Following the Working Party on Horizontal Agricultural Questions on 16 September 2015,

delegations will find in Annex the comments from the Belgian delegation.

ANNEX

Comments from the Belgian delegation

Draft Reg modifying R1370

• - 

  art.5.0. Increase of milk budget

This point is under discussion on SCA level.

• - 

  art.5.0a.2 nd subparagraph – Portion, aid amount per portion vs aid amount per child and per

year

Firm opposition to aid amount per portion: that system will heavily increase the administrative workload in terms of controls, both administrative and on-the-spot. The best would be to leave flexibility to MS, as is already applied for SFVS. MS know their needs and their abilities, so MS should decide themselves which system fits: aid amount per portion or aid amount per child and per year. In Belgium an aid amount per child and per year is defined and that runs very well.

• - 

  art.5.2. Allocation between MS of F&V envelope and milk envelope and criteria for the allocation

Firm opposition to the criterion “historical use of Union aid” (art.5.2.b). We could consider as acceptable a transition period. A transition period would give time to MS with a highly developed Milk Scheme to adapt their programme, and give the same access to these fund to all MS, in an balanced and egalitarian upgrade.

At the end of this transition period, historical criterion must be deleted: all MS need the same objective access to milk budget to develop an ambitious programme.

COM proposed on 16 Sept. an alternative in deleting allocation criteria from the basis act and fixing national envelopes in annex of basis act. COM should present that project of annex. That information is required to define our final position. Up to now we have no view on the future national envelopes, calculated on the basis of the proposed criteria.

• - 

  art.5.4. Transfers between budget F&V and budget milk:

15% is acceptable, and ensures stability to both programmes year-to-year. Nevertheless, an increase in the possibility of transfer between national envelopes can be considered in the frame of the deletion of historical criterion.

Proposal of R modifying R1308/2013 and R1306/2013

• - 

  art.23.2 – eligible products, and annex V

As from the beginning of the discussions, BE is in favour of a list of eligible products limited to fresh F&V, milk and dairy products as cheese and yoghourts, in respect of annex V of R1308. We do not agree that products with CN code 2202 90 are to be considered as milk products.