There is “no justification” for farmers to be receiving different payments per hectare across the EU, European Commissioner for Agriculture Janusz Wojciechowski has said.

In response to a question from the Irish Farmers Journal on an Ag-Press webinar on Wednesday, the Commissioner said there are problems in many member states with payment flattening.

“We have problems in many member states with internal convergence, big differences between the farmers [in terms of payments per hectare].

“We found that this is only a historical reason, there is no justification for this situation. There is progress with internal convergence, the Commission supported 100% internal convergence which was proposed by the European Parliament.

“The compromise is 85% to 2026 which means nobody should receive a direct payment less than 85% of the average in their member state,” he said.