F6The relevant authority may grant coupled support to farmers under the conditions laid down in this Chapter (in this Chapter referred to as "coupled support").

Coupled support may be granted to the following sectors and productions: cereals, oilseeds, protein crops, grain legumes, flax, hemp, rice, nuts, starch potato, milk and milk products, seeds, sheepmeat and goatmeat, beef and veal, olive oil, silkworms, dried fodder, hops, sugar beet, cane and chicory, fruit and vegetables and short rotation coppice.

Coupled support may only be granted to those sectors or to those regions of a F7constituent nation where specific types of farming or specific agricultural sectors that are particularly important for economic, social or environmental reasons undergo certain difficulties.

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Coupled support is a production-limiting scheme that shall take the form of an annual payment based on fixed areas and yields or on a fixed number of animals and shall respect financial ceilings to be F8jointly agreed by the relevant authorities for each constituent nation.

In the case of a legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons, F15the relevant authority may apply the limits referred to in paragraph 6 at the level of the members of those legal persons or groups where national law provides for the individual members to assume rights and obligations comparable to those of individual farmers who have the status of a head of holding, in particular as regards their economic, social and tax status, provided that they have contributed to strengthening the agricultural structures of the legal persons or groups concerned.

Any coupled support granted under this Article shall be consistent with F9measures provided for in Regulation (EU) No 1305/2013 and Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 and any other measures specified for the purposes of this paragraph by virtue of paragraph 9.

The F12Secretary of State may make regulations supplementing this Regulation as regards measures in order to avoid beneficiaries of voluntary coupled support suffering from structural market imbalances in a sector. Those F13regulations may allow F14for support to continue to be paid until 2020 on the basis of the production units for which voluntary coupled support was granted in a past reference period.

The Secretary of State may not make regulations under paragraph 9 or 10 without the consent of each of the relevant authorities for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Where the relevant authority for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland requests that the Secretary of State makes regulations under paragraph 9 or 10, the Secretary of State must have regard to that request.

Up to 8% of the annual national ceiling set out in Annex II may be used to finance the coupled support.

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The percentages of the annual national ceiling referred to in F19paragraph 1 may be increased by up to two percentage points F20if at least 2 % of F21the annual national ceiling set out in Annex II F22is used to support the production of protein crops under this Chapter.

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By way of derogation from the percentages set out in paragraphs 1 to 4, F24... up to EUR 3 million per year F25may be used for financing coupled support.

Where a decision has been reviewed and notified to the Commission by 1 August 2019 pursuant to this Chapter, it will have effect in calendar year 2020.

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