P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 185: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will report on the presentation by the Commission and exchange of views discussed at the Council of EU, Agriculture and Fisheries, meeting on 23 March 2009 on the Commission Progress Report A simplified CAP for Europe a success for all; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12432/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Commissioner Fischer Boel presented the report to Ministers. She gave an overview of the actions taken to date to achieve simplification of the CAP. She outlined the work that had been carried out on technical simplification, e.g. consolidation of texts and deletion of obsolete legislation and on simplification of agricultural policies such as recent CAP Health Check reforms involving further decoupling, abolition of set-aside and the 10-month retention of land rule, streamlining of cross-compliance and simplification of the rules on transfer of entitlements. She drew attention to the Commission rolling action plan for simplification which had commenced in 2005 with some 20 projects. This plan now comprised 50 projects, 43 of which had been completed. She quantified in financial terms the reduction in administrative burdens that had been achieved by the changes and went on to outline the new initiatives planned in continuation of the simplification process. These include continuation of the rolling action plan for simplification, the creation of a single legal act on cross-compliance, on-farm training schemes for Commission officials and implementation of the commitment made in the Health Check to continue the process of simplifying the Single Payment Scheme and cross-compliance.

The Presidency deferred discussion of the Commission communication to the next Council of Ministers meeting in April. I am fully committed to the simplification process and I welcome the Commission report. It provides a useful account of the simplification achieved to date and includes some worthwhile projects. Nevertheless, I believe that we should be far more ambitious and concentrate our future efforts on projects that result in real and practical simplification for farmers and national administrations. I have several ideas in mind including making real and substantive changes to controls under cross compliance with a view to placing greater reliance on self-regulation, risk analysis and sample controls and examining the scope for greater efficiencies in the inspection process. I will be making these points to the Commission and the Council when this matter is discussed at our April meeting.