This Regulation establishes:
common rules on payments granted directly to farmers under the support schemes listed in Annex I ("direct payments");
specific rules concerning:
a basic payment for farmers ("the basic payment scheme" and a transitional simplified scheme, "the single area payment scheme");
a voluntary transitional national aid for farmers;
a voluntary redistributive payment;
a payment for farmers observing agricultural practices beneficial for the climate and the environment;
a voluntary payment for farmers in areas with natural constraints;
a payment for young farmers commencing their agricultural activity;
a voluntary coupled support scheme;
a crop-specific payment for cotton;
a voluntary simplified scheme for small farmers;
a framework within which Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania may complement direct payments.
In order to ensure legal certainty, the Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 70 amending the list of support schemes set out in Annex I to the extent necessary to take account of any new legislative acts on support schemes which may be adopted after the adoption of this Regulation.
Article 11 shall not apply to the regions of the Union referred to in Article 349 TFEU ("the outermost regions") and to the direct payments granted in the smaller Aegean islands in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 229/2013.
Titles III, IV and V of this Regulation shall not apply to the outermost regions.
1.For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions shall apply:
(a)"farmer" means a natural or legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons, regardless of the legal status granted to such group and its members by national law, whose holding is situated within the territorial scope of the Treaties, as defined in Article 52 TEU in conjunction with Articles 349 and 355 TFEU, and who exercises an agricultural activity;
(b)"holding" means all the units used for agricultural activities and managed by a farmer situated within the territory of the same Member State;
(c)"agricultural activity" means:
production, rearing or growing of agricultural products, including harvesting, milking, breeding animals, and keeping animals for farming purposes,
maintaining an agricultural area in a state which makes it suitable for grazing or cultivation without preparatory action going beyond usual agricultural methods and machineries, based on criteria established by Member States on the basis of a framework established by the Commission, or
carrying out a minimum activity, defined by Member States, on agricultural areas naturally kept in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation;
(d)"agricultural products" means the products, with the exception of fishery products, listed in Annex I to the Treaties as well as cotton;
(e)"agricultural area" means any area taken up by arable land, permanent grassland and permanent pasture, or permanent crops;
(f)"arable land" means land cultivated for crop production or areas available for crop production but lying fallow, including areas set aside in accordance with Articles 22, 23 and 24 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999, with Article 39 of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 and with Article 28 of Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013, irrespective of whether or not that land is under greenhouses or under fixed or mobile cover;
(g)"permanent crops" means non-rotational crops other than permanent grassland and permanent pasture that occupy the land for five years or more and yield repeated harvests, including nurseries and short rotation coppice;
(h)"permanent grassland and permanent pasture" (together referred to as "permanent grassland") means land used to grow grasses or other herbaceous forage naturally (self-seeded) or through cultivation (sown) and that has not been included in the crop rotation of the holding for five years or more; it may include other species such as shrubs and/or trees which can be grazed provided that the grasses and other herbaceous forage remain predominant as well as, where Member States so decide, land which can be grazed and which forms part of established local practices where grasses and other herbaceous forage are traditionally not predominant in grazing areas;
(i)"grasses or other herbaceous forage" means all herbaceous plants traditionally found in natural pastures or normally included in mixtures of seeds for pastures or meadows in the Member State, whether or not used for grazing animals;
(j)"nurseries" means the following areas of young ligneous (woody) plants grown in the open air for subsequent transplantation:
(j)vine and root-stock nurseries,
fruit tree and berries nurseries,
ornamental nurseries,
commercial nurseries of forest trees excluding those for the holding's own requirements grown within woodland,
nurseries of trees and bushes for planting in gardens, parks, at the roadside and on embankments (e.g. hedgerow plants, rose trees and other ornamental bushes, ornamental conifers), including in all cases their stocks and young seedlings;
(k)"short rotation coppice" means areas planted with tree species of CN code 0602 90 41 to be defined by Member States that consist of woody, perennial crops, the rootstock or stools of which remain in the ground after harvesting, with new shoots emerging in the following season and with a maximum harvest cycle to be determined by the Member States;
(l)"sale" means the sale or any other definitive transfer of ownership of land or payment entitlements; it does not include the sale of land where land is transferred to public authorities or for use in the public interest and where the transfer is carried out for non-agricultural purposes;
(m)"lease" means a rental agreement or similar temporary transaction;
(n)"transfer" means the lease or sale or actual inheritance or anticipated inheritance of land or payment entitlements or any other definitive transfer thereof; it does not cover the reversion of entitlements upon expiry of a lease.
2.Member States shall:
(a)establish criteria to be met by farmers in order to fulfil the obligation to maintain an agricultural area in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation, as referred to in point (c)(ii) of paragraph 1;
(b)where applicable in a Member State, define the minimum activity to be carried out on agricultural areas naturally kept in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation, as referred to in point (c)(iii) of paragraph 1;
(c)define the tree species qualifying for short rotation coppice and determine the maximum harvest cycle in respect of those tree species, as referred to in point (k) of paragraph 1.
Member States may decide that land which can be grazed and which forms part of established local practices where grasses and other herbaceous forage are traditionally not predominant in grazing areas is to be considered to be permanent grassland, as referred to in point (h) of paragraph 1.
3.In order to ensure legal certainty, the Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 70 establishing:
(a)the framework within which Member States are to establish the criteria to be met by farmers in order to fulfil the obligation to maintain an agricultural area in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation, as referred to in point (c)(ii) of paragraph 1;
(b)the framework within which Member States shall define the minimum activity to be carried out on agricultural areas naturally kept in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation, as referred to in point (c)(iii) of paragraph 1;
(c)the criteria to determine the predominance of grasses and other herbaceous forage and the criteria to determine the established local practices referred to in point (h) of paragraph 1.