amcAUSTRIA-Interessensvertretung der österreichischen Erzeugerorganisationen für Obst und Gemüse e.V.
amcAUSTRIA
Der amcAUSTRIA - agrar management club Austria e.V.
ID: 89339439558-44
Lobbying Activity
Response to Fruit and vegetables sectors - Recognition criteria of producer organisations and operational programmes
18 Dec 2020
amcAUSTRIA - Official representative organisation of the Austrian Producer Organisations (POs) for fruit and vegetables e.V. – goes along with the proposed amendments of the Commission.
Apart from that we support the following proposals of AREFLH submitted on 15.12.2020.
• Article 31,6 concerning the carry-over of investments to MORE THAN ONE Operational Programme:
To stay competitive, Producer Organisations have to continually invest and to create the best circumstances to deliver high-quality products. In line with that it is often essential to implement complex projects resulting in very high sums of investment costs.
The rules on the balance of the OPs limit the annual costs in the OP for one bigger project / year. So they have to be apportioned and to be carried-over to following years. Apart from that large-scale projects quite often start in one of the last years of the current OP. So the eligible years are restricted once again.
AREFLH’s proposition would enable POs to submit more costs into their OPs and to receive fiscal aid for economically reasonable large-scale projects. This would have a lasting positive effect on the competitiveness of the European POs.
• amendment proposed to Annex III (1) regarding the eligibility of specific costs also for the 'use and management of packaging aimed at reducing food waste and emissions and increasing shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables':
The requirements in the OPs on environmental measures increase, whereas ist gets more difficult for highly developed companies to find new environmental measures to include in their POs. The proposed amendment of AREFLH could be a possibility for the POs to meet the strict rules on environmental measures linked to fiscal aid.
• New subparagraph to Annex III, 12 on exceptional expenditures deriving from sanitary crisis:
Especially the COVID19 pandemic has shown that – facing an unforeseeable crisis – companies have to react quickly and by using adequate methods and measures. These measures result in costs that should be possibly eligible.
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