07-01-2014- The European Commission adopted its revised State Aid Guidelines for agriculture, forestry and rural areas on 25 June. The new guidelines are part of a wider State Aid revision initiative (SAM), which was launched by the Commission in May 2012, and will enter into force from 1 July 2014 on.
The new State Aid Guidelines determine the criteria under which the EU Member States can support measures for agriculture, forestry and rural areas. The new rules are in line with the overall SAM initiative and the new Common Agriculture and Rural Development Policy. Overall, the revised rules are more concrete than the previous rules for 2007-2013, leaving less room for interpretation by the Member States.
The initial proposal by the Commission was brought to a more reasonable level from the forest owner point of view during the last six month. The improvements include for example:
The possibility to use national aid for SFM purposes wider than originally proposed by the Commission
The possibility to access national aid for supporting work operations
The possibility to support bioenergy related operations
The possibility to provide aid for animal damages that are not caused by protected animals only
The Commission however did not take into account the forest owners demand for ruling out small scale national support from the pre-planning requirement. This means that in future, it will not be possible to grant national aid retrospectively, which has been possible under the current system though. If the pre-planning requirement is not dealt with and implemented reasonably by the Member States, it can cause a serious lack of flexibility when it comes to financing and implementation of ad-hoc forest management operations.
When it comes to forestry, CEPF together with Copa-Cogeca and ELO were actively engaged in the revision process, which included for example two joint letters and a list of concrete amendments sent to Commissioner Ciolos in early 2014.
Further information about the new State Aid Guidelines can be found at:
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/stateaid/legislation/index_en.htm