In financial year 2014, direct aids to farmers were reduced by EUR 868 million by applying the financial discipline mechanism. This reduction was necessary to establish the agricultural crisis reserve and to ensure that total CAP expenditure for market measures and direct aids stayed within the ceiling agreed in the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020.
However, in 2014 it was eventually not necessary to use the crisis reserve. In fact the support measures taken from August 2014 onwards in the wake of the Russian embargo on EU agricultural products will only lead to EU expenditure for the 2015 budget. Moreover, there remained other unused amounts of the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund in the 2014 budget.
Therefore, the Commission adopted on 24 November 2014 a Regulation allowing Member States (except for Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania which are still in phasing-in of the direct aids and where farmers are not yet subject to financial discipline) to reimburse, as of 1 December 2014, farmers a total of EUR 868 million. The reimbursement should be made no later than 15 October 2015.
This reimbursement mechanism was agreed in the 2013 CAP reform, and is now applied for the first time.
Source: ec.europa.eu
