The Diplomat
Spanish farmers and livestock farmers will receive up to 3.386 million euros in advance payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for the 2022 marketing year, starting on 16 October.
Yesterday, the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) published the regulation authorising the increase in advance payments of up to 70% in direct aid and up to 85% in rural development measures.
Specifically, in Spain, this authorisation will allow an advance of up to 3,386 million euros in direct aid to the 648,691 farmers and livestock breeders who have submitted their single aid application for this year. The amounts finally paid will depend on the payment schedule established by each autonomous community.
This increase compared to the 50% established by EU regulations is in response to the request made by Spain and other Member States to provide greater liquidity to farms and help farmers and stockbreeders to alleviate the adverse effects of the war in Ukraine.
Recently, the European Commission has also published a regulation that allows certain control measures for CAP aid applications to be made more flexible due to the pandemic, as was already the case in the previous 2020 and 2021 campaigns. This regulation provides for the possibility to reduce some control samples, as well as the option to replace field visits and classical controls by the use of photo-interpretation of satellite images or orthophotos, and by the use of new technologies such as geo-tagged photos.
Agriculture specified that this initiative will facilitate that controls in 2022 can be carried out as soon as possible so that payments are not delayed.
