Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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421. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to seek an increase in EU state aid and to decrease the limits beyond the existing €15,000 to allow greater scope for targeted support to farmers. [43671/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I assume the deputy is referring to an increase (rather than a decrease) in EU state aid limits, beyond the existing €15,000.

In March 2016, at the Agriculture Council of Ministers meetings, I requested an increase in the agriculture de minimis threshold limits from €15,000 to €20,000, as a direct response to the ongoing market difficulties being experienced by farmers. The European Commission indicated at the time, that it would need to conduct an impact assessment so as to ensure that any such increase would not cause any risk of distortion of competition and trade. Minister of State Doyle also raised the issue of state aids flexibility, against the background of Brexit, at the recent Council of Agriculture Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.

The European Commission launched an impact assessment on agricultural de minimis aid in July of this year. As part of its assessment, the Commission is looking at a number of options including:

- increasing the individual threshold limit of €15,000, ranging from €20,000 to €30,000; and

- increasing the national threshold limit, currently 1% of the annual agricultural output, by anything up to 2%.

The assessment will also examine whether the aid should be concentrated to just one or a few agricultural sectors; or, whether the aid should be spread evenly between all agricultural sectors. The baseline scenario is to maintain the ceilings currently fixed within Commission Regulation 1408/2013.

The Commission has set a target adoption date of April 2018 and I look forward to seeing the outcome of its assessment in due course.