Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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308. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of questions/queries asked of his Department by the EU Commission with regard to the draft rural development plan he has submitted for consideration; if the number of queries made by the Commission exceeds the number of queries from the Commission to the previous RDP submitted for approval under the outgoing CAP agreement; the details of the number of queries made by the Commission in advance of approval of the outgoing RDP; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2856/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The draft RDP 2014-2020 was formally submitted to the European Commission on 3 July 2014, a number of weeks in advance of the regulatory deadline. The Commission’s formal observations on the draft RDP were received on 20 October 2014. There were 266 observations in total, incorporating a range of informational, technical and policy matters. This level of feedback from the Commission is not out of line with the observations received in other Member States and, in fact in many cases, the number of observations received on our RDP was less than other Member States. The Department issued a detailed response to the Commission’s observation letter on 11 November 2014.

Under the previous programming period, 77 observations were received from the European Commission on the draft 2007-2013 RDP along with a wide range of observations which were received informally. However, the 2007-2013 RDP and the 2014 -2020 RDP are governed by different EU regulations, rules and procedures. Therefore, the processes in place in relation to the approval and drafting of the two RDPs are not comparable.

At present, Department officials are in ongoing and intensive discussion with the Commission in order to seek a speedy resolution of outstanding issues. This is being pursued by the Department as a matter of priority.