Article 31 Payments to areas facing natural or other specific constraintsE1

England

Payments to farmers in mountain areas and other areas facing natural or other specific constraints shall be granted annually per hectare of agricultural area in order to compensate farmers for all or part of the additional costs and income foregone related to the constraints for agricultural production in the area concerned.

X1Additional costs and income foregone shall be calculated in comparison to areas which are not affected by natural or other specific constraintsF1....

When calculating additional costs and income foregone, F2the relevant authority may, where duly justified, differentiate the level of payment taking into account:

the severity of the identified permanent constraint affecting farming activities;
the farming system.

F32.

Payments shall be granted to farmers who undertake to pursue their farming activity in the areas designated pursuant to Article 32 F4... .

Payments shall be fixed between the minimum and maximum amount laid down in Annex II. These payments may be increased in duly substantiated cases taking into account specific circumstances to be justified in the rural development programmes.

F5The relevant authority shall provide for degressivity of payments above a threshold level of area per holding, to be defined in the programme, except if the grant covers only the minimum payment per hectare per year as laid down in Annex II.

In the case of a legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons, F6the relevant authority may apply the degressivity of payments at the level of the members of these legal persons or groups on condition that:

(a)

F7the law as it applies in the constituent nation provides for the individual members to assume rights and obligations comparable to those of individual farmers who have the status of head of holding, in particular as regards their economic, social and tax status; and

(b)

those individual members have contributed to strengthening the agricultural structures of the legal persons or groups concerned.

In addition to the payments provided for in paragraph 2, F8the relevant authority may grant payments under this measure between 2014 and 2020 to beneficiaries in areas which were eligible under Article 36(a)(ii) of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 during the 2007-2013 programming period. For beneficiaries in areas that are no longer eligible following the new delimitation referred to in Article 32(3), those payments shall be degressive over a maximum period of four years. That period shall start on the date that the delimitation in accordance with Article 32(3) is completed and at the latest in 2019. Those payments shall start at no more than 80 % of the average payment fixed in the programme for the programming period 2007-2013 in accordance with Article 36(a)(ii) of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005, and shall end in 2020 at the latest at no more than 20 %. When the application of degressivity results in the level of the payment reaching EUR 25, the F9relevant authority can continue payments at this level until the phasing out period is completed.

F10By way of derogation from the first subparagraph, where degressive payments start only in the year 2019, those payments shall start at no more than 80% of the average payment fixed in the 2014-2020 programming period. The payment level shall be established in such a way that the end-level in 2020 is half the starting level.

Following completion of the delimitation, beneficiaries in the areas that remain eligible shall receive full payment under this measure.

F116.

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