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Polish Presidency in the EU
Substantive discussion
during thematic
workshops
The conference was opened by Tadeusz Nalewajk
– Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development. In his speech
the Minister stressed that among the priorities
of the Polish presidency of the EU Council is
strengthening and improving the effectiveness of
the CAP facing new challenges for the agri-food
sector in the EU and worldwide. He expressed
the opinion that reducing
administrative burdens for
farmers benefiting from
the CAP mechanisms is an
indispensable condition for
simplification of the CAP as
well as for its modernization.
He also reminded that Polish paying agencies
AMA and ARMA actively participate the discussions
on simplification of the CAP at the level
of EU institutions.
Moderator of the conference was Władysław
Łukasik – President of the Agricultural Market
Agency.
The agenda included plenary sessions and two
workshops.
In plenary sessions their speeches made the
representatives of the European Union and
Member States' paying agencies. Patricia Bugnot
– Director of Audit of agricultural expenditure
in DG Agriculture and Rural Development (DG
AGRI) presented the assumptions of currently
being prepared legal basis for implementation
of the Common Agricultural Policy in terms of
budget.
In the speech on the new approach of the
European Court of Auditors (ECA) to assess the
manner of spending the EU funds on agriculture,
representatives of the ECA – Edward Fennessy
and Michael Zenner presented the proposals
for changes in the process of certification by the
ECA veracity of the accounts of agricultural funds
managed by DG AGRI.
Presentation of the European Anti-Fraud Office
(OLAF) representative, Louis Smeets concerned
the actions of OLAF in the fight against fraud and
irregularities in the disbursement of funds from
the EU agricultural funds.
Presentations of the Member States during
the plenary sessions were devoted to activities
towards the optimization and simplification and
improvement in implementation of mechanisms
of the CAP.
The representative of the Netherlands, Maarten
Smorenburg informed on the progress of work of
Learning Network, the informal group of 12 paying
agencies of Member States. This initiative
intends conducting a detailed analysis and the
formulation of requests for simplification of the
future CAP from the perspective of implementation
at a practical level.
The representative of Spain, Fernando Miranda
Sortillos – supervising the work of the paying
agencies in Spain – presented the results of analysis
of the costs of executing
direct payments.
Representative of the Polish
Agency for Restructuring
and Modernisation of Agriculture
(ARMA) Robert Pośnik
presented the actions taken
to optimize the process of managing direct payments
in Poland. These included implementation
of an integrated IT system, modifying the
Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) and optimization
of on-the-spot checks.
Optimization of activities of the paying agencies
by using IT applications was the topic of
Alexandru Constantinescu of Romanian Agricultural
Payment and Intervention Agency (APIA).
Opportunities to reduce costs borne by paying
agencies on implementing the CAP mechanisms
through actions at the national level were the
subject of speeches of representatives of Denmark
– Arent Bak Josefsen (Director General of the Danish
Food Industry Agency), Bulgaria – Martnia Pavlova
(from the National Fund for Agriculture) and
Poland – Anna Bogusz (the Agricultural Market
Agency).
Presentation of the Hanns-Christoph Eiden
of the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food of
Germany concerned the control and simplification
of the CAP mechanisms in terms of reducing
the administrative burden.
10
Autumn 2011