Lack of funds will put pressure on Rural Development spend
26 May 2006
The amount of money coming from Europe to be spent on rural development within the UK has been significantly reduced. Jim Allister MEP believes that this will limit what rural development funds can be spent on within Northern Ireland.
Jim Allister commented, “The announcement from Europe that the UK will get only 3.5% of a smaller pot of funding will severely limit the rural development programme for Northern Ireland running between 2007 and 2013. This budget allocation shows that yet again the UK has got a very bad deal from Europe. Currently the UK has 11% of the agricultural output in the EU 15 and 7% of its rural area."
Jim Allister predicts that the UK Government will not match fund any voluntary modulated funds being removed from farmers. “I believe that the UK Government will now be opting for voluntary modulation to transfer funds from the Single Farm Payment to wider rural development. This will put Northern Ireland farmers at a competitive disadvantage to other regions of Europe that decide not to remove voluntary modulation from Single Farm Payments. At the end of 2005 the UK Government pushed a financial package deal that allowed for modulation of the SFP to be up to 25% with no requirement for any match funding from Government. It is vital that this level of modulation is not removed from Single Farm Payment entitlements within Northern Ireland. "
