Translation of "Système de primes spéciales " (French → English) :

1. For each farmer who, in respect of the same calendar year, submits an application for direct payments referred to in Article 22 of Regulation (EC) No 1782/2003 for a special premium or a suckler cow premium, the competent authorities shall establish the number of LUs (livestock units) corresponding to the number of animals for which a special premium or suckler cow premium may be granted, taking account of the forage area of his holding.

Special premium , deseasonalisation premium, suckler cow premium (including when paid for heifers and including the additional national suckler cow premium when co-financed) , slaughter premium , extensification payment, additional payments

Special premium, deseasonalisation premium, suckler cow premium (including when paid for heifers and including the additional national suckler cow premium when co-financed), slaughter premium, extensification payment, additional payments

Where a farmer has received livestock premiums and/or supplements, the decoupling base amount shall be calculated by multiplying the number of animals for which the special male bovine premium, including the extensification payment where this is made in connection with that premium, has been granted, respectively, in each year of the reference period, by the amounts per head established for the calendar year 2002 by the corresponding Articles referred to in Annex VI.

In this context I should like to highlight some of the changes taken up by the rapporteur and approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development concerning the regions that I know best, the Azores and Madeira. For instance: the eligibility of traditional varieties for the purposes of vineyard restructuring, including premiums for the grubbing-up of those varieties; maintenance of the supplement to the special premium for the fattening of bovine animals, so as to encourage farmers who have no more milk quota to change over ...[+++] to beef and ensure that the added value of fattening does not leave the region in the form of very young cattle for export; the flexibility of granting aid for the marketing of plants and flowers without the need to draw up annual contracts with producers’ organisations, which would be impossible in view of the inadequate organisation of agriculture in these regions; the extension of aid to the marketing of potatoes for human consumption; the increase in production rights and premiums for strategic productions, such as suckler cows, bovine animals for fattening, or sugar beet; improvement of the special supply arrangement with the inclusion of certain raw materials essential for the competitiveness of the compound feedingstuff production sector and consequently for the livestock sector.

Secondly, there are long-term measures to rather radically amend the COM or even to change the nature of the CAP. These measures are not all bad, but they should not be decided too hastily. Some of them, however, are quite frankly bad, such as the introduction of a system of individual rights for the special premium for male bovine animals, which would introduce a cumbersome and bureaucratic quota system, or reducing the density factor, which would probably not produce the desired extensification but would certainly reduce the income of farmers, something they certainly do no ...[+++]t need.