AGEA and MASAF (General Agency for Disbursements in Agriculture and Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry)-increasingly ‘Coldiretti’-pursue the plan to abolish freelancers in and around agriculture.
After measures taken by AGEA to assert the exclusivity of CAAs in the management of farm files for European funding, a draft ministerial decree emerges aimed at proclaiming Coldiretti’s absolute monopoly. #CleanSpades.
1) Background. Agriculture and rural development, European funding
Italy ranks first in Europe for value added in agriculture, essentially due to wine production, of which it is a global leader. Moreover, the survival of the sector is linked to European funding in agriculture and rural development under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Their disbursement in Italy depends on:
– AGEA. The public administration body that manages the volume of European contributions in the agribusiness sector in Italy, as well as the mass of data, communications and mandatory registrations that companies are required to submit to access them. From one region to another, AGEA either handles applications and payments directly or directs and coordinates a regional paying agency,
– SIAN. The National Agricultural Information System is the IT infrastructure through which EU funding disbursement practices in the agribusiness sector pass. These cover farmers and ranchers but also food and feed processing companies (including from non-EU raw materials), as well as those certified for organic food production and trade. (1)
2) CAA and freelancers
I CAA – Authorized Agricultural Assistance Centers-these are companies built ‘to measure’ by the agricultural confederations to which the Italian state has entrusted the management of most of the practices in the agribusiness sector, submitted through the SIAN infrastructure and then managed by AGEA for the data collection, processing and liquidation phases. (2)
Self-employed professionals are therefore forced to set up CAAs or contract with them in order to simply work, that is, to offer their clients the services for which they are licensed by current regulations and their professional associations. With peace to free competition, and a further mockery:
– professionals are subject to precise higher education or degree requirements, as appropriate, in addition to professional licensing exams and continuing education requirements,
– CAA employees have no education requirements and can simply self-certify six months of ‘experience in the agricultural sector’ (e.g., work in an agricultural confederation) to gain access to the SIAN infrastructure.
3) Suppression of freelancers in agriculture, AGEA resolution 9.8.22
The monopoly ambitions of the CAAs-read, Coldiretti’s ‘Impresa Verde’ system-had already found ample satisfaction in the conventions entered into with them by Gabriele Papa Pagliardini. Starting in 2020, the then director of AGEA, in conflict of interest with the Coldiretti magic circle, (3) had begun to exclude freelancers from accessing the SIAN. Triggering administrative litigation with professional bodies eventually concluded to their further detriment (4,5,6).
The condition imposed on freelancers to operate on the SIAN infrastructure is the abjuration of their work and life choices:
– thousands of agronomists, agrotechnicians and land surveyors (as well as surveyors, industrial experts, accountants and certified public accountants, labor consultants, etc.) should set up special companies (CAAs) and entrust employees alone with access to the National Agricultural Information System,
– so most recently, AGEA resolution 9.8.22 no. 41 provided for the disabling of SIAN access credentials for operators not employed by CAAs or companies affiliated with it, effective Sept. 1, 2023. Yet another bolt from the blue. But that is not all.
4) Coldiretti monopoly, the new ministerial decree outline.
Coldiretti’s monopoly will be crowned by the end of the year-in the imperialistic ambitions of Vincenzo Gesmundo, the one on whom everything depends-through a ministerial decree that aims to exclude not only freelancers in agriculture but even CAAs ‘children of a lesser God. Attached is a draft of that decree, prepared in late August 2023 (see Appendix), with underlining in ochre of its salient features. Some hints to follow.
4.1) Public service, unfair competition, conflicts of interest
‘CAAs occupy a prominent place in the process of disbursing public CAP resources, as they play the dual role of proxies for the agricultural enterprises that turn to them for the disbursement of Assistance activities and for the establishment and updating of the farm file, and delegates of the Paying Agencies, which may entrust them, by special agreement, with the performance of public administrative activities related to the formal regularity checks of the documentation provided by farmers and the correct entry of the relevant information in the SIAN and the information systems of the Paying Agencies‘ (recital 1).
Agricultural enterprises (and others) are thus forced to rely on CAAs in order to access European funding, and these same CAAs – exclusively entrusted with a public service involving the direct management of business files – can then provide businesses themselves with ‘assistance’ whose limits are never clearly defined. Freelancers are thus forced to ‘hand over’ their clients to CAAs, which can then offer businesses the same ‘assistance’ services already offered by freelancers, regardless of the conflicts of interest between the public function (of delegate of the paying agency) and the private function (of interlocutor with the paying agency’s delegate) or the unfair competition that results.
4.2) Professionals in slavery
In contrast, professionals who participate as partners in a CAA, subject to a minimum capital of €51,646, incur a number of prohibitions:
– ‘use business data of which they have become aware in the course of carrying out the activities delegated to CAAs for other purposes, and, in any case, within the scope of their own freelance activities‘,
– ‘provide advice or carry out activities, including delegated control functions (…) in any way related to administrative proceedings, initiated or managed by the CAA to which it belongs and by any other CAA operating in the national territory‘.
Those registered with the Order of Agronomists and Foresters or the College of Agro-Technicians and Graduate Agro-Technicians–in addition to being forced to submit to individual CAAs–would therefore also have to comply with a ban on competition with the universality of CAAs.
4.3) Access to SIAN records.
‘Within the SIAN the following computer records are established:
– ‘CAA location list’ means a single nationwide register containing the list of CAAs authorized under this decree and their locations,
– ‘National Register of Operators’: a single nationwide register containing the details of CAA operators‘ (MASAF draft decree, Article 5).
Freelancers thus permanently suppressed, in defiance of the fundamental rights affirmed in the Italian Constitution and the ‘EU Charter for Fundamental Human Rights. (7)
4.4) Requirements for CAAs
Competition from ‘children of a lesser god’ CAAs is erased by the special, operational and structural requirements introduced in the draft decree:
– ‘the minimum territorial scope of operation of CAAs coincides with the territory of the region or an autonomous province.’
– ‘the CAA must have operational facilities in all provinces of the region in which it intends to operate and demonstrate appropriate operational capacity with reference to its own premises and those of the service companies employed (…), with reference to each province‘ (Article 9),
– ‘the availability of premises used for the exercise of CAA activities must be guaranteed, either exclusively or concurrently with the exercise of the activity of the Authorized Tax Assistance Center (CAF).’
– ‘no activities other than those delegated by the Paying Agencies may be carried out on the premises used for CAA activities‘,
– ‘CAAs, and the companies they use, operate through employees, collaborators, professionals, with proven experience and reliability in the provision of assistance activities in agricultural matters, in compliance with labor, tax, social security, welfare and insurance obligations‘ (Article 10),
– ’employeesand contractors performing the functions of the CAA operator:
(a) must be employees of the CAA with an employment relationship and exclusive clause,
(b) must not have consulting relationships with public administrations and private entities‘ (Article 11).
4.5) Rules for the performance of delegated functions
The circle (of monopoly) closes with a strict regime of ‘carrying out delegated functions’ (Article 12), which contemplates ‘the separation of the functions of admissibility (verification of completeness, adequacy and formal correctness), receipt and logging of instances, applications and statements in the interest of the producer and the function of recording in the Information Systems the data and documents on behalf of the delegating public entities in accordance with Annex I of the 127/2022‘.
As if that were not enough-in addition to separation of functions, operational and budget certifications, etc. – ‘the agreements between the CAAs and the coordinating body and the paying agencies, as well as with the regions and autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano, may provide, in relation to the activities being entrusted, for operational capacity requirements in addition to the minimum requirements‘ already established in the draft decree (Article 12).
4.6) Service companies
The only service companies that CAAs may use to carry out their functions and activities must be wholly owned ‘by the organizations and associations that formed the CAAs or their territorial organizations.’
These companies must in all cases meet the structural and administrative requirements for CAAs themselves, set forth in Articles 10 and 11 of this decree (see above, Section 4.4. See draft decree, Article 12). ‘Mission impossible’ once again for freelancers who intend to retain their role as consultants.
4.7) ‘Tailored’ fees.
The ‘modes ‘ of setting fees‘ that they are entitled ‘To CAAs for delegated administrative functions.‘ provide for the establishment, by the delegating administrations, of ‘An incentive system that takes into account the organizational structure of the CAA and the time taken to complete all stages of the procedure, such as to avoid peaks in activity and delays in the submission of applications‘ (Article 6).
In practice, the fearless ones who dare to try to compete with Coldiretti’s CAAs (even if only at the regional or autonomous province level), after going through the labors of Hercules to organize for the ‘minimum requirements’ defined in the aforementioned standards, will risk receiving lower contributions for their activities. Since no one will ever be able to compete with the organizational structures of the yellow flags, which will therefore receive greater fees.
4.8) Mandate, transitional rules
Producers and businesses interested in receiving assistance in accessing data in national and regional information systems must give CAAs ‘an ad hoc mandate’ (Article 19). That is to say, freelancers will no longer be able to delegate practice management to monopoly CAAs but will in effect have to hand over clients to them, thus effectively losing any ‘chance’ to provide them with ‘assistance’ on those and various other practices.
Twelve months of purgatory, from the date of publication of the decree, will be granted only to ‘CAAs and the companies they use that are already licensed‘. In the sixty days following the latter date, the coordinating body will check whether the ‘minimum requirements’ are met, with a view to the revocation of previous authorizations by regions and autonomous provinces. This decree will repeal the former CAA regulations. (2)
5) Impact on free competition and employment
The requirement for CAAs to operate only through employees entails:
– an unjustified restriction on the provision of services in the EU market, to the detriment of freelancers who have always been qualified to provide assistance in handling EU funding files in the agribusiness sector,
– an equally unjustified limitation on competition, which precludes commissioning enterprises from choosing the providers of the said services. With potential aggravation of costs associated with fees from CAAs operating under a monopoly,
– the real risk of a reduction in the quality of services, since the requirements of competence and professionalism demanded of CAA employees are significantly lower than those required by professional regulations for freelancers (see supra, paragraph 2).
6) Agriculture and animal husbandry in Italy, what future?
The Court of Auditors had already stigmatized the previous management of AGEA, where Gabriele Papa Pagliardini had irreparably burned € 4.168 billion in rural development aid (in addition to several tens of millions of euros in deficits, uncollected aid and various other irregularities). (8) Pagliardini, according to some rumors, was then ‘exiled’ to Bonifiche Ferraresi – a minority shareholder with strengthened powers in CAI SpA, aka Federconsorzi 2 – to deal with tenders and contracts.
The new director general of AGEA, Fabio Vitale, recently announced the ‘new course’ of the General Agency for Agricultural Disbursements. Highlighting how one-third of arable land, or 3.7 million hectares, is now abandoned. (9) Applications for funding to AGEA–through which about € 7.5 billion passes each year–declined by 10 percent, from 500 to 450,000, in the last fiscal year alone. The question remains how the ‘new course’ can redeem agriculture in Italy without getting rid of those truly responsible for its collapse.
#CleanSpades
Dario Dongo
ANNEX Draft decree ministry of agriculture, food sovereignty and forestry
Notes
(1) Training and research institutions that deliver courses or develop research projects in turn are eligible for European agribusiness funds, as are public administrations submitting projects in the area of rural development, such as the renovation of a historically valuable hamlet in rural areas
(2) CAAs, established in Italy in 2001, are to date governed by the Ministerial Decree of March 27, 2008 (Reform of Authorized Agricultural Assistance Centers) https://tinyurl.com/34xwrvw6
(3) Dario Dongo. AGEA – Coldiretti, European Commission rejects conflict of interest. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 24.3.21
(4) Dario Dongo. TAR Lazio annuls AGEA-CAA agreement. #CleanSpades. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 12.5.21
(5) Dario Dongo. TAR Lazio’s trio on CAAs. Freelancers readmitted. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 11.6.21
(6) Dario Dongo. CAA, Council of State rejects freelancers. #CleanSpades. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 1.4.22
(7) In fact, Article 15 of the European Charter for Fundamental Rights, ‘Freedom to choose an occupation and right to engage in work,’ provides that:
‘1. Everyone has the right to engage in work and to pursue a freely chosen or accepted occupation.
2. Every citizen of the Union has the freedom to seek employment, to work, to exercise the right of establishment and to provide services in any Member State‘
(8) Dario Dongo, Giulia Orsi. Report of the Court of Auditors on AGEA directed by Gabriele Papa Pagliardini. #CleanSpades. GIFT (Great Italian Food Trade). 12.3.21
(9) Giorgio Dell’Orefice. Agriculture, one-third of arable land is abandoned. Il Sole 24 Ore. 24.9.23
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
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