Mr. Damien Clarke:

I acknowledge that it is strange to have a number of different categories. One sees a pattern running through the different state aid instruments to which Mr. Hayes referred. The European Maritime and Fisheries Fund includes references to adverse climatic events and tools that are in place to deal with that specific scenario. Similarly, the block exemption includes both the adverse climatic events and natural disasters categories. The latter are defined by reference to existing instruments such as the general de minimusand block exemption regulations in which they are defined, as well as European Union case law. The adverse climatic events category is of much more interest to us as it is much more likely to be useful to us. Natural disasters refer to events such as tornados or hurricanes. God forbid, that we will ever have those types of events in Ireland. The adverse climatic events category is much more relevant, for example, in respect of the storms we experienced earlier this year. The Commission's thinking appears to be that because these types of climatic events are much more likely to occur, the bar should be set higher. The obvious reason for imposing a 30% loss threshold is that one cannot have claims being submitted annually or as a matter of routine because the intervention would cease to be for exceptional events.

It does seem to be a high loss threshold and it is an issue we raised ourselves in previous discussions with the Commission. Many member states would have liked to have seen it perhaps a little lower. However, the Commission's view on that was that it could not legislate or make new legislation. It is there to implement it. It is looking to what the co-legislators have already said in the EMMF, and that 30% threshold is built into the EMMF by the co-legislators. For that reason, the Commission is essentially implementing the same policy in these guidelines.