The objective of the European Council regulation which governs the current early retirement scheme is structural reform through the provision of a financial incentive to older farmers to retire early to facilitate their replacement by younger farmers who are considered more likely to improve the economic viability of the holding. The regulation sets down minimum requirements that must be met but enables individual member states to set additional conditions.
The upper off-farm income limit for transferees is not a provision of the EU regulation. It was included in the current scheme to make it more likely that qualifying transferees would be younger farmers, with a greater commitment to farming, who are most likely to remain within the rural community and to continue in farming into the future. If the upper off-farm income limit were removed, it would increase the likelihood of holdings passing to transferees whose primary source of income was from non-farming and possibly urban activity and who would be less likely to retain a commitment to farming in the longer term. Their presence would in turn reduce the amount of land available to young farmers trying to make their future in farming.