European Commission implementing regulations to support the agri-food sector

On 16 April 2020 the European Commission adopted two implementing regulations to help the agri-food sector deal with the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic to increase the cash flow and reduce the administrative burden.

The first implementing regulation will increase the advances of direct payments (from 50% to 70%) and rural development payments (from 75% to 85%). Farmers will start receiving these advances from mid-October 2020.

The second implementing regulation will among other things:

• Reduce the number of physical on-the-spot eligibility checks for the prevailing part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget from 5% to 3%.
• Provide flexibility in terms of the timing of the checks.
• Enable the use of alternative sources of information to replace the traditional on-farm visits (for example satellite images or geo-tagged photos to prove that investments took place).
• Extension of the deadline for CAP payment applications: the new deadline for applications will now be 15 June 2020, instead of 15 May 2020.