The ongoing CAP reform provides for the introduction of a payment for agricultural practices that are beneficial to the climate and the environment within the direct payment scheme, the Greening Payment. From 1/1/2015, 30 % of the budgetary envelope for direct payments will be assigned to this kind of mandatory measures. The payment will reward the delivery of environmental public goods that go beyond cross-compliance and promote sustainable production. Farmers who receive first-pillar payments will receive the Greening payment (except for organic farms and small scale farms) when they respect the 3 basic measures:

• maintaining permanent grassland
• crop diversification
• maintaining an “ecological focus area” of at least 5 % of the arable area of the holding for farms with an arable area larger than 15 hectares. The Commission can propose to increase this figure to 7 %, on the basis of a Commission report in 2017, by presenting a new legislative proposal. This measure can contribute to the establishement of the green infrastructure.

During the mid-term interim review of the CAP in 2002, it was decided that the whole-farm payments made by the CAP would be backed up by a compulsory set of cross-compliance requirements, covering environmental, food safety, plant and animal health and animal welfare standards. Farmers should observe a minimum level of environmental standards and have to maintain agricultural land in good agricultural and environmental condition as a condition for the full granting of the CAP direct payments. With the on-going CAP-reform the list has been simplified to exclude rules where there are no clear and controllable obligations for farmers. The CAP imposes the framework of cross-compliance criteria. As a Member State, Belgium only has limited freedom in defining its minimum requirements for a good agricultural and environmental condition.

Environmental cross-compliance criteria address the conservation of habitats through ecologically managed Natura 2000 areas, and protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources. These cross-compliance criteria are based on articles emanating from specific European directives, such as the Habitat Directive 92/43/EEC and the Directive on the conservation of wild birds 2009/147. The requirements for good agricultural and environmental condition include inter alia the retention of landscape features.

This operational objective aims to stimulate authorities and farmers to implement the Greening payment and cross-compliance in a way that delivers a real profit to biodiversity.