Article 2 Definitions

For the purpose of this Regulation:

1. 1..

   ‘aid’ means any measure fulfilling all the criteria laid down in Article 87(1) of the Treaty;

2. 2..

   ‘agricultural product’ means:

   1. (a)

      the products listed in Annex I of the Treaty, except fishery and acquaculture products covered by Council Regulation (EC) No 104/2000^f1;

   2. (b)

      products falling under CN codes 4502, 4503 and 4504 (cork products);

   3. (c)

      products intended to imitate or substitute milk and milk products, as referred to in Article 3(2) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 1898/87^f2;

3. 3..

   ‘processing of agricultural products’ means any operation on an agricultural product resulting in a product which is also an agricultural product, except on farm activities necessary for preparing an animal or plant product for the first sale;

4. 4..

   ‘marketing of agricultural products’ means holding or display with a view to sale, offering for sale, delivery or any other manner of placing on the market, except the first sale by a primary producer to resellers or processors and any activity preparing a product for such first sale; a sale by a primary producer to final consumers shall be considered as marketing if it takes place in separate premises reserved for that purpose;

5. 5..

   ‘small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SME) means small and medium-sized enterprises as defined in Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 70/2001;

6. 6..

   ‘gross aid intensity’ means the aid amount expressed as a percentage of the project's eligible costs. All figures used shall be taken before any deduction for direct taxation. Where aid is awarded in a form other than a grant, the aid amount shall be the grant equivalent of the aid. Aid payable in several instalments shall be discounted to its value at the moment of granting. The interest rate to be used for discounting purposes and for calculating the aid amount in a soft loan shall be the reference rate applicable at the time of grant;

7. 7..

   ‘quality product’ is a product fulfilling the criteria to be defined pursuant to Article 32 of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005;

8. 8..

   ‘adverse climatic event which can be assimilated to a natural disaster’ means weather conditions such as frost, hail, ice, rain or drought which destroy more than 30 % of the average of annual production of a given farmer in the preceding three-year period or a three-year average based on the preceding five-year period, excluding the highest and lowest entry;

9. 9..

   ‘less favoured areas’ means areas as defined by Member States on the basis of Article 17 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999;

10. 10..

    ‘investment made to comply with newly introduced minimum standards’ means:

    1. (a)

       in the case of standards which do not provide for any transitional period, investments actually started not more than two years after the date on which the standards are to be made compulsory vis-à-vis operators; or

    2. (b)

       in the case of standards which provides for a transitional period, investments actually started before the date on which the standards are to be made compulsory vis-à-vis operators;

11. 11..

    ‘young farmers’ means producers of agricultural products fulfilling the criteria laid down in Article 22 of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005;

12. 12..

    ‘producer group’ means a group which is set up for the purpose of jointly adapting, within the objectives of the common market organisations, the production and output of its members to market requirements, in particular by concentrating supply;

13. 13..

    ‘producer association’ means an association which consists of recognised producer groups and pursues the same objectives on a larger scale;

14. 14..

    ‘fallen stock’ means animals which have been killed by euthanasia with or without definite diagnosis or have died (including stillborn and unborn animals) on a farm or any premise or during transport, but have not been slaughtered for human consumption;

15. 15..

    ‘TSE and BSE test costs’ means all costs, including those for test kits, taking, transporting, testing, storing and destruction of samples necessary for tests undertaken in accordance with Annex X, Chapter C to Regulation (EC) No 999/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council^f3;

16. 16..

    ‘enterprises in difficulty’ means enterprises considered in difficulty within the meaning of the Community guidelines on State aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty^f4;

17. 17..

    ‘replacement investment’ means an investment that simply replaces an existing building or machine, or parts of it, by a new up-to date building or machine, without expanding the production capacity by at least 25 % or without fundamentally changing the nature of production or the technology involved. Neither the complete demolition of a farm building at least 30 years old and replacement by an up-to date building, nor the fundamental renovation of a farm building, are considered as replacement investments. Renovation is considered as fundamental when its cost amounts to at least 50 % of the value of the new building.

18. 18..

    ‘transparent aid’ means aid measures in which it is possible to calculate precisely the gross grant equivalent as a percentage of eligible expenditure ex ante without need to undertake a risk assessment (for example measures which use grants, interest rate subsidies, capped fiscal measures).