The Commissioner confirmed his aims in a letter to the Latvian Farm Minister, Janis Duklavs and chairman of the EP Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Czesáaw Siekierski.

He also said the European Department of Agriculture would present more detailed results of the “screening” of the entire agricultural legislation and the examination of Member States’ simplification and subsidiarity proposals later this spring.

In mid-January, Hogan called on the 28 EU agriculture ministers to submit ideas and proposals for simplifying the CAP by the end of February this year.

Hogan plans to specify his simplification plans later this year and to hopes to include "appropriate initiatives that could be launched within the following 12 months”.

However, in the three page correspondence, Hogan insists that “change towards a simpler CAP will not come overnight; substantial progress can be achieved if all those concerned work actively and constructively together”.

EU farm lobby issues simplification wishlist

The EU farm lobby this week called on the Commission to show greater tolerance towards farmers during the implementation of new CAP greening measures in 2015 as “the risk of unintentional errors will be high in the first year of the reform”.

In a detailed list of preliminary proposals on simplifying direct support and greening sent to Phil Hogan, the lobby calls for a change in approach “away from investigation and enforcement through a penalty-driven regime towards guidance and support visits”.

IFA simplification submission

The IFA president Eddie Downey said the IFA has made a detailed submission to EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan on simplification and a reduction in red tape for farmers under the new CAP reform.

He said the "stress and fear associated with farm inspections, particularly unannounced inspections, has a negative impact on farmer welfare and is unacceptable."

The IFA proposals call for simplification across the direct payments system, including the inspection and cross compliance regime.

On the issue of inspections it is looking for the on-farm inspection rate across all schemes, including land eligibility, cross compliance, GAEC and all other schemes, to be limited to 1% and submits that duplication under the inspection regime must be fully removed.

Downey added that the IFA is also calling for all no-notice inspections to be eliminated and a change so that 14 days’ advance notice will be provided for all on-farm checks.