After this year’s limit of de minimis aid was exhausted, changes have been proposed to the procedure of providing aid after the 2019 drought: it will be paid out both as aid after the drought and the coronavirus outbreak.
On the other hand, after this year’s pandemic broke out, a special new aid has been provided for in the Rural Development Plan.
The review of effects of the regulation on the special terms and conditions and the manner of awarding and paying out financial aid for operations such as “Aid for farmers especially affected by the COVID-19 crisis” being part of the campaign entitled “Special temporary aid for farmers, micro-enterprises, and small and medium enterprises especially affected by the COVID-19 crisis” included in the Rural Development Plan for the years 2014–2020 says:
“The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development applied to the Minister of Finance to increase the 2020 limit of expenditures for the Common Agricultural Policy (Rural Development Plan 2014–2020) by 1 230 million PLN (including 783 million PLN from European funds and 447 million PLN from state budget), which corresponds to the expenditures planned under this action for 2020, so that these expenditures can be made without reducing the payments planned to be made in 2020 under the other aid instruments provided for in the Rural Development Plan 2014–2020. If the Minister of Finance does not agree to increase the limit of expenditures for 2020 by the above-mentioned sum, the payments under the action in question will be made within the current limit set forth in the act on state budget.”
We asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development what has been the result of this request and whether or not the Minister of Finance has agreed to increase this limit.
“The request of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for increasing the limit of expenditures for the Common Agricultural Policy in 2020 has been included by the Minister of Finance in the draft amendment of the act on budget for 2020 in order to implement a new special and temporary action established in 2020 that will be financed from the funds from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, whose purpose will be to provide aid to farmers as well as small and medium enterprises that run business related to processing, marketing, or development of agricultural products which were especially affected by the COVID-19 crisis,” said the ministry’s representative.
We also wanted to know how the aid after last year’s drought will be financed, seeing as it did not fit within the de minimis limits. Will it be finances from state or EU funds? Are EU funds also involved here?
“The aid referred to in § 13z of the resolution of the Council of Ministers dated 27 January 2015 on the detailed scope and methods of implementation of certain tasks of the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (Polish Journal of Laws item 187, as amended) will be financed in full from the state budget,” the Ministry said.
