Six experiences of managing aid payments for farmers.

Agricultural subsidies from European funds mean huge amounts, a rigorous control and an impressive workload. The numerous regulations issued by the European Union and their continuous updating make this process an extremely dynamic one. Novelty and complexity of the payment system, the large number of farmers and data to be embedded in the system, have created many problems to countries implementing them, and, by default, problems in correct and timely payment of European subsidies.

In Great Britain, the single payments system was implemented in 2005. On March 31, 2006, the payments agency has granted aids of only 15% of the total value, to a number of 31,000 farmers (27%). The IT system has been criticized for the failure.

Underestimating the duration of the deployment period and the number of parcels, lack of experience, to which added frequent changes in European legislation have resulted in inaccurate and delayed payments. Thus, only in the third year of the system's functioning was paid 90.4% of the amount allocated (1.63 billion pounds).

In Greece, on July 16, 2008, payments to farmers were reduced by 10% as a result of repeated irregularities in the operation of the integrated information system. The main problems have been detected in the operation of the LPIS module (land parcel identification system), considered essential for the management and control of payments.

In Poland, with number of farmers comparable to Romania, only the basic components of the IACS system were implemented during 3 years (without the Financial - Accounting subsystem, the Document Management subsystem and the Market Regulation subsystem, respectively). Implementation of the payments system experienced problems due to incomplete legislation that should have established the norms and standards based on which the system should operate

In the Czech Republic, the state paid 60% of the money coming from the EU in December 2004 (within 6 months of the accession), 25% in January 2005 and the remainder by April 2005. Until 2007, the Czech government has not fully adopted EU regulations. The LPIS solution was considered inadequate due to problems arising in the parcels identification module, so that the IT provider was changed after two years.

Bulgaria has launched the construction of the payments system in 2005 and completed it after 3 years.

In Romania, the complexity of the IT system and the duration of its deployment may be considered a true record, compared to what has been done in other European countries. Romania had only a year and a half for the construction and operation of the IT system for APIA, which is a "tour de force", given that other countries have done the same in 3-4 years.

Except for Romania and Bulgaria, all the other IT systems were realized before EU integration of the respective countries. At the start of the project, in Romania there were no electronic data on the parcels size, number of owners, on legal disputes over land law. This was extremely important, as Romania had to absolutely comply with the European Commission deadlines, even while the system was under construction.

Through an extraordinary effort of the team of experts from SIVECO Romania and APIA, the first two agricultural campaigns - 2007 and 2008 - were completed, performing payments of over 1 billion Euro from EU funds.

The complexity and importance of the project developed in APIA were recognized by the prestigious International Project Management Association (IPMA), in June 2009. As part of the 23th IPMA World Congress, held in Helsinki on 15-17 June 2009, the solution developed for the IT system operating at the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) has received the Finalist trophy, introducing SIVECO Romania to the world elite of companies with the best project management achievements. The software solution developed by SIVECO Romania for APIA also received the recognition of IT professionals, being awarded, in November 2008, at one of the reference events of the IT community in Romania - Romanian Computer Show Gala 2008 organized by International Data Group.

"Romania benefits of a good, robust and flexible IACS system, fully integrated, having to be regularly updated in accordance to the Common Agricultural Policy regulations", stated in an interview Salvatore Carfi, expert in accreditation procedures of the payment agencies.