Lithuania will appeal to the General Court of the European Union to partially annul the European Commission’s (EC) decision to cut support for its agriculture by more than €13 million. This was approved by the Government on Wednesday.
“The Republic of Lithuania must seek to have the decision overturned or amended in such a way that the financial correction applied to Lithuania is minimised to the maximum extent possible, while at the same time safeguarding Lithuania’s financial interests,” Deputy Agriculture Minister Vytautas Abukauskas said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The Commission decided on 3 July to withhold €13.132 million of EU funds from livestock and crop production, but Lithuania is seeking to reduce the sanction, which Vilnius says is disproportionate.
According to Mr Abukauskas, the EC violated Community regulations in imposing the sanctions, failed to respect the principle of proportionality and the duty to cooperate in applying a fixed correction to Lithuania, and did not take into account the calculations submitted by Lithuania.
“The Lithuanian authorities propose to bring an action and ask the General Court to annul the contested decision insofar as it concerns the imposition of a disproportionately high financial correction on Lithuania,” said the Lithuanian position paper prepared by the Ministries of Agriculture and Justice.
The document points out that Lithuania has been sanctioned €7.6 million in 2019 for non-compliance with Community requirements for cross-compliance (the “financial correction”) and €5.5 million in 2020 for non-compliance with the voluntary coupled support for livestock.
The document indicates that Lithuania seeks to reduce the amount of the financial correction to €2.2-4 million in the first case and €2.5 million in the second.
The Ministries of Agriculture and Justice intend to file a lawsuit to annul the EC decision by 13 September.
Source: Manoukis.lt