On Thursday 5 December 2019, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on the EU instruments offered to farmers for preventing and managing risks and crises.
ABOUT THE AUDIT
The ECA assessed whether EU risk and crisis management tools had been efficiently implemented and had delivered results. The auditors focused on how farmers used EU support for insurance and the exceptional measures triggered for the fruit and vegetable sector following the 2014 Russian ban on some imports from the EU Member States.
Overall, the report is expected to conclude that EU agricultural risk management toolbox and crisis measures partially met their objectives, although not always in an efficient way. Based on their findings, the auditors will make a number of recommendations to the European Commission.
ABOUT THE TOPIC
Farmers need to develop strategies to address losses following climate events, plant or animal diseases and price volatility. The EU common agricultural policy contains instruments to support risk management by farmers and respond to crises. They include for instance insurance and mutual funds, designed to compensate farmers in the event of certain defined risks. They also concern exceptional measures aimed at stabilising the market when serious disturbance occurs.
The ECA’s special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.