How is the Single Payment Scheme evolving: Sugar Support
What is the additional sugar support?
At the November 2005 meeting of the EU Agricultural and Fisheries Council, political agreement was reached on wide-ranging reform of the EU sugar regime. A key element of this was a 36% cut in the guaranteed price for white sugar, with an associated income support payment being incorporated into the Single Payment Scheme (SPS).
What areas of national discretion are available?
Member States are required to incorporate the additional sugar support into the SPS model that they have already adopted. For England, this means the flat rate per hectare model, with a transitional phase to 2012 during which a declining element of the value of each entitlement will be determined by farmers’ historical subsidy receipts.
There are, however, some areas of national discretion on the detailed arrangements. For England, the areas of discretion covered the following:
- the historical/flat rate split to be used in each of the transitional years to 2012 (when all entitlements will be paid at a flat rate) in respect of entitlements held, initially at least, by sugar beet growers
- the qualifying criteria and reference year to be used to distribute the historical element of the value of entitlements amongst sugar beet growers.
What decisions have Ministers made in relation to this support?
Following a consultation exercise in Spring 2006, Ministers decided the following:
- that in order to simplify to the maximum possible extent the arrangements for incorporation of this additional support into the SPS, all of the additional funds available in 2006 (£52 million) will be added to the value of entitlements held by sugar beet producers, based on their contracted tonnage for the 2005/06 marketing year (this excludes leased-in tonnage);
- that from 2007, the additional sugar support will be incorporated into the SPS on the basis of the existing flat-rate/historic splits, but in the 2007-2009 period the annual increments in that support (relative to the 2006 level) will be added each year to the entitlements held, initially at least, by sugar producers. It has been further clarified that the deficit area premium element of the support (worth approximately €10 million per annum for the four years 2006-2009) is to be allocated entirely to entitlements held, initially at least, by sugar beet producers.
These decisions were announced on 22 June 2006.
How much is the additional sugar support worth?
€700,000 will be incorporated into the SPS over the seven year period, 2006-2012. The following table shows how much of this funding is to be allocated each year to entitlements held by all SPS applicants (via the flat-rate element) and how much to entitlements held by sugar beet growers (via the historic element):
Scheme Year |
Total additional sugar support* (Euro '000) |
Support to be added to all SPS entitlements via the flat-rate element (Euro '000) |
Support to be added to entitlements held, initially at least, by sugar beet producers (Euro '000) |
|---|---|---|---|
2006 |
74,325 |
0 |
74,325 |
2007 |
90,513 |
19,302 |
71,211 |
2008 |
106,702 |
28,953 |
77,749 |
2009 |
115,361 |
38,604 |
76,757 |
2010 |
105,376 |
79,032 |
26,344 |
2011 |
105,376 |
94,838 |
10,538 |
2012 |
105,376 |
105,376 |
0 |
* This includes a deficit area premium component worth approximately €10 million per annum for the four years 2006-2009.
Further information is available on our Help
page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat 
documents.
Page published: 27 September 2007