A German agriculture minister has presented a proposal to the federal cabinet to abolish the material flow balance ordinance, a regulation introduced following a European Court of Justice ruling to reduce groundwater nitrate levels and avoid EU fines for non-compliance with the Water Framework Directive and the Nitrate Directive.
Landowners had been required to meticulously document the specific details of their field applications, a process deemed excessively bureaucratic by the minister. “We will free the farms from an annual 18 million euro bureaucratic burden” said Alois Rainer, the Christian Social Union (CSU) minister, emphasizing the need to reduce overburdening bureaucracy, a promise made by the coalition government.
The agriculture minister emphasized that excessive bureaucracy is the biggest obstacle to economic growth and that the government has already delivered on this promise, just seven weeks after taking office. The fertilizer ordinance, however, will remain in place, setting out rules for the application of fertilizers, including the permitted quantities, timing and conditions.
The ministry has pledged to work on a “monitoring of effectiveness” to ensure Germany meets its commitments to the European Commission in the future. The next step will be to submit a revised fertilizer law.