Reform history

5. In addition to the payments provided for in paragraph 2, Member States 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 Member State can continue payments at this level until the phasing out period is completed.

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

6. Croatia may grant payments under this measure to beneficiaries in areas which have been designated pursuant to Article 32(3), even where the fine-tuning exercise referred to in the third subparagraph of that paragraph has not been completed. The fine-tuning exercise shall be completed by no later than 31 December 2014. Beneficiaries in areas that are no longer eligible following the completion of the fine-tuning exercise shall receive no further payments under this measure.

##### Funding technical assistance

1. In accordance with Article 6 of Regulation (EU) No 1306/2013 the EAFRD may use up to 0,25 % of its annual allocation to finance the tasks referred to in Article 58 of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013, including the costs for setting up and operating the European network for rural development referred to in Article 52 of this Regulation and the EIP network referred to in Article 53 of this Regulation at the Commission's initiative and/or on its behalf, of which up to EUR 30 567 000 in current prices shall be allocated to the Structural Reform Support Programme established by Regulation (EU) 2017/825 of the European Parliament and of the Council (¹¹) for use within the scope and purpose of that programme.

The EAFRD may also finance the actions provided for in Article 41(2) of Regulation (EU) No 1151/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council (¹²), in relation to Union quality scheme indications and symbols.