Council Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 (repealed)Show full title

SECTION 1 U.K. Axis 1Improving the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector

Article 20 U.K. Measures

Support targeting the competitiveness of the agricultural and forestry sector shall concern:

(a)

measures aimed at promoting knowledge and improving human potential through:

(i)

vocational training and information actions, including diffusion of scientific knowledge and innovative practises, for persons engaged in the agricultural, food and forestry sectors;

(ii)

setting up of young farmers;

(iii)

early retirement of farmers and farm workers;

(iv)

use of advisory services by farmers and forest holders;

(v)

setting up of farm management, farm relief and farm advisory services, as well as of forestry advisory services;

(b)

measures aimed at restructuring and developing physical potential and promoting innovation through:

(i)

modernisation of agricultural holdings;

(ii)

improving the economic value of forests;

(iii)

adding value to agricultural and forestry products;

(iv)

cooperation for development of new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture and food sector and in the forestry sector;

(v)

improving and developing infrastructure related to the development and adaptation of agriculture and forestry;

(vi)

restoring agricultural production potential damaged by natural disasters and introducing appropriate prevention actions;

(c)

measures aimed at improving the quality of agricultural production and products by:

(i)

helping farmers to adapt to demanding standards based on Community legislation;

(ii)

supporting farmers who participate in food quality schemes;

(iii)

supporting producer groups for information and promotion activities for products under food quality schemes;

(d)

[F1 transitional measures for Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia concerning:]

(i)

supporting semi-subsistence agricultural holdings undergoing restructuring;

(ii)

supporting setting up of producer groups.

Textual Amendments

F1 Substituted by Council Regulation (EC) No 1463/2006 of 19 June 2006 adapting Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) by reason of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union.

SUBSECTION 1 U.K. Conditions for measures aimed at promoting knowledge and improving human potential

Article 21 U.K. Vocational training and information actions

Support provided for in Article 20(a)(i) shall not include courses of instruction or training which form part of normal programmes or systems of agricultural and forestry education at secondary or higher levels.

Article 22 U.K. Setting up of young farmers

1. Support provided for in Article 20(a)(ii), shall be granted to persons who:

(a) are less than 40 years of age and are setting up for the first time on an agricultural holding as head of the holding;

(b) possess adequate occupational skills and competence;

(c) submit a business plan for the development of their farming activities.

2. The support shall be granted up to the maximum amount laid down in the Annex

Article 23 U.K. Early retirement

1. Support provided for in Article 20(a)(iii), shall be granted:

(a) to farmers who decide to stop their agricultural activity for the purpose of transferring the holdings to other farmers;

(b) to farm workers who decide to stop all farm work definitively upon the transfer of the holding.

2. The transferor shall:

(a) be not less than 55 years old but not yet of normal retirement age at the time of transfer or not more than 10 years younger than the normal retirement age in the Member State concerned at the time of the transfer;

(b) stop all commercial farming activity definitively;

(c) have practised farming for the 10 years preceding transfer.

3. The transferee shall:

(a) succeed the transferor by setting up as provided for in Article 22; or

(b) be a farmer of less than 50 years old or a private law body and take over the agricultural holding released by the transferor to increase the size of the agricultural holding.

4. The farm worker shall:

(a) be not less than 55 years old but not yet of normal retirement age or not more than 10 years younger than the normal retirement age in the Member State concerned;

(b) have devoted at least half of his working time to farm work, during the preceding five years, as a family helper or farm worker;

(c) have worked on the transferor’s agricultural holding for at least the equivalent of two years full-time during the four-year period preceding the early retirement of the transferor;

(d) belong to a social security scheme.

5. The total duration of early retirement support shall not exceed 15 years for the transferor and for the farm worker. It shall not go beyond the 70th birthday of the transferor and the normal retirement age of the farm worker.

Where, in the case of a transferor, a retirement pension is paid by the Member State, early retirement support shall be granted as a supplement taking into account the amount of the national retirement pension.

6. The maximum eligible amount of support is laid down in the Annex.

Article 24 U.K. Use of advisory services

1. Support provided for in Article 20(a)(iv) shall be granted in order to help farmers and forest holders to meet costs arising from the use of advisory services for the improvement of the overall performance of their holding.

As a minimum the advisory service to farmers shall cover:

(a) the statutory management requirements and the good agricultural and environmental conditions provided for in Articles 4 and 5 of and in Annexes III and IV to Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003;

(b) occupational safety standards based on Community legislation.

2. Support for the use of advisory services shall be limited to the maxima laid down in the Annex.

Article 25 U.K. Setting up of management, relief and advisory services

Support provided for in Article 20(a)(v) shall be granted in order to cover costs arising from the setting up of farm management, farm relief and farm advisory services as well as forestry advisory services and shall be degressive over a maximum period of five years from setting up.

SUBSECTION 2 U.K. Conditions for measures aimed at restructuring and developing physical potential and promoting innovation

Article 26 U.K. Modernisation of agricultural holdings

1. Support provided for in Article 20(b)(i), shall be granted for tangible and/or intangible investments which:

(a) improve the overall performance of the agricultural holding; and

(b) respect the Community standards applicable to the investment concerned.

Where investments are made in order to comply with Community standards, support may be granted only to those which are made in order to comply with newly introduced Community standards. In that case, a period of grace, not exceeding 36 months from the date on which the standard becomes mandatory for the agricultural holding, may be provided to meet that standard.

In the case of young farmers receiving support provided for in Article 20(a)(ii), support may be granted for investments to comply with existing Community standards, when identified in the business plan referred to in Article 22(1)(c). The period of grace within which the standard needs to be met, may not exceed 36 months from the date of setting up.

2. Support shall be limited to the maximum rate laid down in the Annex.

Article 27 U.K. Improvement of the economic value of forests

1. Investment support provided for in Article 20(b)(ii) shall be granted for forests owned by private owners or their associations or by municipalities or their associations. This limitation does not apply to the tropical or subtropical forests and to the wooded areas of the territories of the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, the smaller Aegean Islands within the meaning of Regulation (EEC) No 2019/93 and the French overseas departments.

2. Investments shall be based on forest management plans for forest holdings above a certain size to be defined by the Member States in their programmes.

3. Support shall be limited to the maximum rate laid down in the Annex.

Article 28 U.K. Adding value to agricultural and forestry products

1. Support provided for in Article 20(b)(iii), shall be granted for tangible and/or intangible investments which:

(a) improve the overall performance of the enterprise;

(b) concern:

• (b) the processing and/or marketing of products covered by Annex I to the Treaty, except fishery products, and of forestry products; and/or

• the development of new products, processes and technologies linked to products covered by Annex I to the Treaty, except fishery products, and to forestry products; and

(c) respect the Community standards applicable to the investment concerned.

Where investments are made in order to comply with Community standards, support may be granted only to those which are made by micro-enterprises, as referred in paragraph 2, in order to comply with a newly introduced Community standard. In that case a period of grace, not exceeding 36 months from the date on which the standard becomes mandatory for the enterprise, may be provided to meet the standard.

2. Support shall be limited to the maximum rate laid down in the Annex.

3. Support under paragraph 1 at its maximum rate shall be limited to micro, small and medium- sized enterprises within the meaning of Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC(1). For the territories of the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, the smaller Aegean Islands within the meaning of Regulation (EEC) No 2019/93 and the French overseas departments, no size limits apply for the maximum rate. For enterprises that are not covered by Article 2(1) of that recommendation with less than 750 employees or with a turn over of less than EUR 200 million the maximum aid intensity is halved. In the case of forestry, support shall be limited to micro-enterprises.

Support shall not be granted to enterprises in difficulty within the meaning of the Community guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty(2).

Article 29 U.K. Cooperation for development of new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture and food sector and in the forestry sector

1. Support provided for in Article 20(b)(iv) shall be granted to promote the cooperation between primary producers in agriculture and forestry, the processing industry and/or third parties.

2. Support shall contribute to cover costs incurred for the cooperation.

Article 30 U.K. Infrastructure related to the development and adaptation of agriculture and forestry

Support provided for in Article 20(b)(v), may cover notably operations related to access to farm and forest land, land consolidation and improvement, energy supply and water management.

SUBSECTION 3 U.K. Conditions for measures aiming to improve the quality of agricultural production and products

Article 31 U.K. Meeting standards based on Community legislation

1. Support provided for in Article 20(c)(i) shall contribute partly to costs incurred and income foregone caused to farmers who have to apply standards in the fields of the environmental protection, public health, animal and plant health, animal welfare and occupational safety.

These standards must be newly introduced in national legislation implementing Community law and impose new obligations or restrictions to farming practice which have a significant impact on typical farm operating costs and concern a significant number of farmers.

2. The support shall be granted as a flat-rate, temporary and degressive aid on an annual basis, for a maximum duration of five years from the date the standard becomes mandatory in accordance with Community legislation. Support shall be limited to the maximum amount laid down in the Annex.

Article 32 U.K. Participation of farmers in food quality schemes

1. Support provided for in Article 20(c)(ii) shall:

(a) cover agricultural products only intended for human consumption;

(b) be for Community food quality schemes, or for those recognised by the Member States which comply with precise criteria to be defined in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 90(2); schemes whose sole purpose is to provide a higher level of control of respect of obligatory standards under Community or national law shall not be eligible for support;

(c) be granted as an annual incentive payment whose level shall be determined according to the level of the fixed costs arising from participation in supported schemes, for a maximum duration of five years.

2. Support shall be limited to the maximum amount laid down in the Annex.

Article 33 U.K. Information and promotion activities

Support provided for in Article 20(c)(iii) shall concern products covered by the support of the quality schemes referred to in Article 32. Support shall be limited to the maximum rate laid down in the Annex.

Subsection 4 U.K. Conditions for transitional measures

Article 34 U.K. Semi-subsistence farming

1. Support provided for in Article 20(d)(i) to agricultural holdings which produce primarily for their own consumption and also market a proportion of their output (semi-subsistence agricultural holdings) shall be granted to farmers who submit a business plan.

2. Progress in respect of the business plan referred to in paragraph 1 shall be assessed after three years.

3. The support shall be paid in the form of a flat-rate aid up to the maximum amount specified in the Annex and for a maximum of five years.

4. The support shall be granted in respect of applications approved by 31 December 2013.

Article 35 U.K. Producer groups

1. Support provided for in Article 20(d)(ii) shall be granted in order to facilitate the setting up and administrative operation of producer groups for the purposes of:

(a) adapting the production and output of producers who are members of such groups to market requirements;

(b) jointly placing goods on the market, including preparation for sale, centralisation of sales and supply to bulk buyers;

(c) establishing common rules on production information, with particular regard to harvesting and availability.

2. The support shall be granted as a flat-rate aid in annual instalments for the first five years following the date on which the producer group was recognised. It shall be calculated on the basis of the group’s annual marketed production, up to the ceilings set in the Annex.

3. The support shall be granted to producer groups which are officially recognised by the Member State’s competent authority by 31 December 2013.

(1)

OJ L 124, 20.5.2003, p. 36.

(2)

OJ C 244, 1.10.2004, p. 2.