The cost of mistaken agricultural interventions

• Apart from agricultural payments, APIA paid damages awarded by the courts of up to 200,000 Euros

Last year, the courts ordered the Agency for Payments and Agricultural Interventions (APIA) to pay 954.920 lei (over 200,000 Euros in damages) to subsidy recipients who sued the institution, according to data that the APIA sent to our editors, at their request.

"The damages that APIA was forced to pay out in 2009, for subsidies paid out from the domestic budget and EC funds amount to 954.920 lei", a document released by the APIA states. The document only contains figures for the APIA central office.

67.5% of the total number of lawsuits concern the subsidies paid out from European funds, whereas the remaining 32.5% concern the subsidies awarded from the national budget.

"Court charges for the year 2009 amount to 20,818 lei, and the amount paid by the APIA in court charges since the beginning of the year is 5,352 lei", the officials of the APIA said.

Since the beginning of the year, 102 lawsuits were opened against the institution, compared to 145 last year. this means that most likely, the number of lawsuits brought by the beneficiaries of subsiodies could be higher this year than it was in 2009. Besides, of the 102 ongoing lawsuits, the APIA had unfavorable rulings in two of the lawsuits concerning the subsidies from the national budget and from European funds.

The officials of the APIA said that the report on the lawsuits of its central department comes as the institution last year paid out over 1 billion Euros in subsidies.