Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael)
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185. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to base the single farm payment using activity in year ending 2011 rather than 2012; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19610/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the original Commission proposals, existing payment entitlements in Member States such as Ireland that applied the Single Payment historic model will expire on 31 December of the year before the first implementation of the new CAP regime. It is now recognised that the first year of the new regime will be 2015. Farmers will apply in that year for an allocation of new payment entitlements. The Commission proposals have been the subject of negotiations at official and political level in the Council of Ministers over the past 18 months, culminating in an agreed Council position which was reached at the Council on 18 and 19 March.

Under the proposals agreed by the Council of Ministers, the number of entitlements to be allocated in the first year of the new regime can either be based on the total number of eligible hectares declared in that year or, alternatively, a Member State may decide that the number of entitlements will be confined to the number of eligible hectares declared in either 2012 or 2013. Member States are also allowed to confine the allocation of payment entitlements to those farmers who received a payment under the existing Single Payment Scheme in either 2010 or 2011. Where a Member State exercises this option, the European Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts to determine how entitlements are to be allocated to farmers who apply in the first year of the new regime but who did not receive payment in either 2010 or 2011. Again, it is too early to say whether Ireland will exercise this particular option. I should also point out that the next step in the negotiations involves reaching agreement between the three European Institutions - the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Commission. Therefore, it is too early to speculate on how the final outcome will affect individual farmers.