European Commission
stateaidgreffe@ec.europa.eu
The Central Union of Swedish-speaking Farmers and Forest Owners in Finland, Svenska lantbruksproducenternas centralförbund SLC r.f. is grateful for the opportunity to give our contribution on the revised agricultural de minimis Regulation.
De minimis aid has provided a flexible way to help agricultural producers in need without affecting competition in the single market. The recent challenges faced by the agricultural sector in terms of increased operational costs for such as fuel, fertilizer and energy, combined with market fluctuations and the increasing frequency of extreme climatic events, are bringing severe pressure and profitability problems to many farms. Exceptional events and crises are now commonplace and higher compensation for those in dire need is important to ensure a well-functioning and wide food production in the future as well.
SLC therefore welcomes the proposal of an increase in the individual ceiling of de minimis aid to €37,000/3 years, but still considers it too low to be able to tackle the above problems. We suggest that the individual aid ceiling would be further increased to at least €50,000/3 years to meet today’s challenges, not only based on the increased inflation.
SLC also points out that a possible mandatory de minimis register to increase transparency, should be carefully investigated to prevent additionally administrative burden for producers, but also for the already heavily burdened Finnish authorities.
Svenska lantbruksproducenternas centralförbund SLC r.f.
ID-NUMBER: 959960633613–48
Jonas Laxåback
Secretary General
Cecilia Nyholm
Advisor
