Support system for producers of certain arable crops (amend. Regul. 1765/92/EEC)

In adopting the report by Mr Alan GILLIS (PPE, IRL), the European Parliament approved the proposal on extraordinary set-aside with the following amendments: - it felt that the set-aside scheme should be simplified in order to make it fairer and more transparent and that, as a result, the introduction of a specific rate for extraordinary set-aside should be revised with a view to making it more flexible; - in order to ensure greater equilibrium within the market, Parliament called for the establishment of a new support system to bring Community prices for certain arable crops into line with prices on the world market and to compensate the loss of income by means of a compensatory payment to producers. In this way, the only areas eligible for extraordinary set-aside should be those that had been sown or that had benefited from a system of state aid for fallow land. The idea behind this was that the Member States could choose to apply this measure in light of specific circumstances. Thus: - when land was used to justify a request for aid under the CAP (Regulation (EEC) No 805/68) rather than aid for extraordinary set-aside, this land would not be taken into consideration in the calculation of the rate of extraordinary set-aside; - the percentage of extraordinary set-aside should be revised when base areas had been exceeded due to exceptional climatic conditions; - this percentage should be calculated in such a way so as to equal the percentage exceeding the total regional (or specific) base areas by deducting 100% (rather then 75%, as proposed by the Commission) of the land set aside under voluntary set-aside; - the Member States could depart from the principle of extraordinary set-aside to take account of specific situations (particularly for land involved in a restructuring programme or for certain land that was to be rotated, or in the case of leased land). In these situations, the Member States would take measures to avoid any unnecessary increase in the total agricultural land involved. Parliament also added a specific derogation for maize to be implemented from the 1995/96 marketing year rather than the 1996/97 marketing year. �