The position is that all livestock premia and arable aid schemes are to be fully decoupled from production as and from 1 January 2005 and will be replaced by the new single payment scheme to be introduced from 2005. The quota regime in respect of the livestock premia schemes will cease to be in existence from 31 December 2004. Consequently, quotas, including suckler cow quotas, will no longer exist for any farmer after that date and will not be required to ensure payment of the single payment scheme in the future.
Under the European Council regulation introducing the single payment scheme, a farmer may have access to the scheme if he was an active farmer during the reference years 2000, 2001 and 2002 and received payments under the livestock premia and/or arable aid schemes. In addition, farmers for whom entitlements will be established must activate those entitlements in 2005 by continuing to farm and submitting an area aid declaration in that year. In general, farmers must also have an eligible hectare of land for each payment entitlement.
Farmers who were participating in the early retirement scheme prior to the commencement of the reference period will not have any entitlements established for them under the single payment scheme as they had already retired from farming and because of their obligations under the early retirement scheme, they may not return to farming in the future. The persons who were leasing the retired farmer's lands and were active farmers in the reference period will have entitlements established for them. It should be noted that entitlements are attached to the farmer who was actively farming during the reference period and not to the land. However, during the Council negotiations last year I secured agreement that farmers, including offspring of farmers who retired before the reference period, who take over the holding of the retired farmers at some date in the future will be able to apply to the national reserve for payment entitlements under the single payment scheme.
Farmers who entered the early retirement scheme during or after the reference period will have entitlements established for them, provided they were actively farming during the reference period and received payment under the relevant schemes. However, because they have now ceased farming under the early retirement scheme, they will not be in a position to obtain payment under the single payment scheme in 2005 or thereafter. The European Council regulation provides for such entitlements to revert to the national reserve. However, the question of whether retired farmers in this category should be allowed to activate entitlements with a view to leasing them out in 2005 and thereafter is one of the items under discussion in the context of the Commission establishing detailed rules. Negotiations are still ongoing and agreement is not expected until the end of this month or early in April. It would be unwise at this stage to speculate on what the final outcome will be.
