Amid the chaos of the leaders’ summit in Brussels last week Croatia quietly signed the EU accession treaty, paving the way for the country to become the 28th member in July 2013.
The Croatian people will hold a referendum early in 2012 to confirm the intention. Until it fully joins the EU, Croatia will be an observer in the European Council, without speaking rights.
Once it formally becomes a member, Croatia will have seven votes in Council – the same weighting as Ireland and Denmark.
It will also appoint 12 members to the European Parliament and Croatian will become an official language of the EU.
Impact on EU agriculture
With regards to the CAP, direct payments will be phased in at 25% in 2013 through to 100% as of 2022. In 2013, the national ceiling for the CAP direct payments in Croatia will be €93,250,000 rising to €373m, which is around one-tenth of the anticipated UK ceiling.
In order to finance the cost of Croatia joining the EU, the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) proposals for 2014- 2021 say: 'The Commission will propose the necessary adjustments to this framework if, as expected, the Republic of Croatia becomes a Member State of the European Union before the next Multiannual Financial Framework enters into force.'
There is an expectation that the total EU budget would be increased to respond to the needs of Croatia’s accession, however there is the possibility that within the framework the amount set aside for the CAP is agreed in absolute terms, (i.e. the frozen budget 2013 for CAP) and therefore space will need to be made for Croatian direct and rural development payments within that.
Croatia’s farm sector
The Republic of Croatia became independent in 1991. Croatia has a total population of 4.3 million people and a continental land area of 56.594 km². The currency of Croatia is the Kuna.
The economic importance of agriculture is still relatively high in Croatia despite a declining trend in the last few years. The gross value added (GVA) of agriculture was always above 7% between 2000 and 2006 (7.1% in 2006) but decreased to 6.8% in 2007. The official average farm size in Croatia is 2.4 ha, but there are some large state owned agri-businesses.
Croatia is currently self-sufficient in the production of only few products: potatoes, poultry meat, eggs, corn, wine, sugar and wheat.
Cereals dominate crop production, accounting for about 65% of total arable land. Maize (2.2 million tonnes produced in 2009) and wheat (903,900t in 2009) are the most important commodities.
In the livestock sector, small production units predominate, especially for cattle, pig, sheep, goat and horse keeping. Poultry production on the other hand is characterised by large-scale production units (for poultry meat and eggs).
There were 447,000 cattle (of which 212,000 were dairy cows) in 2009 and 695,000 sheep. Croatia is not self-sufficient in beef meat, sheep meat production or in milk production.
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- Richard Playle - 15/12/2011
There is an expectation that the total EU budget would be increased to respond to the needs of Croatia’s accession, however there is the possibility that within the framework the amount set aside for the CAP is agreed in absolute terms, (i.e. the frozen budget 2013 for CAP) and therefore space will need to be made for Croatian direct and rural development payments within that.
So in plain English that means us here in the UK are looking at a cut in our SFP to cover our percentage reduction due to having to pay for Croatia’s entrance into the EU... As this years Modulation was some 19% soon we won’t be getting very much at all!
I have always held the view that Modulation should be deducted at source from the allocations to each country rather than all the members’ states having to employ staff with all the associated running cost to administer it. This would be a cheaper and more sensible way to do it. It seems to me that every tier of officialdom helps to remove and lower the amount left to be shared between us farmers...