Complementary redistributive income support for sustainability

1.   Member States shall provide for a complementary redistributive income support for sustainability (‘redistributive income support’) under the conditions set out in this Article and as further specified in their CAP Strategic Plans.
By way of derogation from the first subparagraph of this paragraph or from Article 98, Member States may address the need for redistribution of income support by other instruments and interventions financed by the EAGF pursuing the objective of fairer distribution and more effective and efficient targeting of income support, provided they can demonstrate in their CAP Strategic Plans that such need is sufficiently addressed.
2.   Member States shall ensure redistribution of direct payments from larger to smaller or medium-sized holdings by providing for a redistributive income support in the form of an annual decoupled payment per eligible hectare to farmers who are entitled to a payment under the basic income support referred to in Article 21.
3.   Member States shall establish at national or regional level, which may be the level of the groups of territories referred to in Article 22(2), an amount per hectare or different amounts for different ranges of hectares, as well as the maximum number of hectares per farmer for which the redistributive income support shall be paid.
4.   The amount per hectare planned for a given claim year shall not exceed the national average amount of direct payments per hectare for that claim year.
5.   The national average amount of direct payments per hectare is defined as the ratio of the national ceiling for direct payments for a given claim year laid down in Annex V and the total planned outputs for the basic income support for that claim year, expressed in number of hectares.
6.   In the case of a legal person, or a group of natural or legal persons, Member States may apply the maximum number of hectares referred to in paragraph 3 at the level of the members of those legal persons or groups where national law provides for the individual members to assume rights and obligations comparable to those of individual farmers who have the status of a head of holding, in particular as regards their economic, social and tax status, provided that they have contributed to strengthening the agricultural structures of the legal persons or groups concerned.
In the case of farmers who are part of a group of affiliated legal entities, as determined by Member States, Member States may apply the maximum number of hectares referred to in paragraph 3 at the level of that group under conditions to be determined by them.