Friday

31st Mar 2023

Royals and multinationals raking in EU farm aid

  • EU cow: the commission has thrown a spotlight on the way the EU spends €55 billion a year (Photo: European Commission)

Royal landowners and multinational companies were among the biggest beneficiaries of the EU's €55 billion farm aid budget in 2008, a new EU transparency law has shown.

In France, which alone scooped €10.4 billion of the pot, the Doux Group, which sells chicken products to over 130 countries worldwide, was the biggest single recipient on €62 million.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Major food companies Nestle and Tate & Lyle were the largest UK winners on around €1 million each.

British aristocrats, who command significant personal fortunes, also pocketed sizeable amounts of EU cash. The Queen received around €530,000. The Duke of Westminster got €540,000. Prince Charles took €180,000.

Germany has declined to publish its figures despite the EU deadline for compliance at midnight on 30 April.

Berlin says it faces legal constraints due to data protection laws in local districts. But the European Commission on Thursday (30 April) said it may take the country to the EU courts if it does not fall into line.

Meanwhile, the same funding pattern was repeated in smaller EU states.

In Ireland, frozen food giant Greencore Group received the largest subsidy on €83 million. The Irish Dairy Board Co-op came second on €6.5 million. Kerry Ingredients Ireland was third on €5 million.

Many individual farmers received around €100,000 each. Tom and Aoife Browne from the town of Killeagh got €433,000.

Pulling teeth

Farm aid transparency was pioneered by a group of Danish investigative journalists who in 2004 forced Copenhagen to release its figures and set up the website farmsubsidy.org to pressure other EU states.

The EU law was pushed through by the office of EU anti-fraud commissioner Siim Kallas. The Estonian official, who also created an EU lobbyists' register, has made transparency his trademark in a bid to secure a second mandate.

Farmsubsidy.org campaigner Jack Thurston has criticised the commission's initiative, which leaves it up to the 27 EU states to manage their own data revelations, giving a patchy picture of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

"We would have preferred central disclosure by the commission, which does hold all the data itself, but that was a battle we lost," he said.

The disclosure is unpopular for other reasons among some farmers.

"It does seem a bit much that details of private income are open to all and sundry. Why should such things be open for everyone to see?" Irish cattle and sheep farmers representative Malcolm Thompson told the Irish Times.

The funding revelations have also sparked fresh complaints over the way the EU distributes its largesse.

"These subsidies are divided unfairly. Everyone has known for a long time that there is no link between incomes and subsidies, which results in an unjust system," French rural workers spokesman Philippe Collin said in Les Echos.

Unpopular policy

The CAP - which is currently being re-modelled to help create new types of rural jobs and to serve environmental goals - has long-attracted criticism for wasting money and killing competition from developing countries.

A study by the University of Liverpool in 2008 even said it kills thousands of Europeans by promoting fatty foods which cause heart disease.

But in eastern Europe, EU subsidies have also helped thousands of small farmers to buy new equipment, boost income and send their children to university for the first time in family history.

In Poland, which has received almost €2 billion already this year, average farm revenue is on its way to doubling from 2004 to 2009.

"The image of the Polish peasant using a horse and plough in his field - it still exists maybe in isolated mountain foothills - but that's the past. The vast majority of farms in Poland are up to European standards," Wiktor Szmulewicz of Poland's National Council of Agricultural Chambers told AFP.

Magazine

EU opens case against Germany over farm aid

The EU commission on Tuesday decided to open a case against Germany after the southern region of Bavaria refused to disclose the names of EU farm aid beneficiaries, as required by the bloc's regulations.

Police violence in rural French water demos sparks protests

Protests are planned in 90 villages across France on Thursday to protest against escalating police violence that have left 200 people injured, including two people who are still in a coma, after a violent clash in Sainte-Soline over 'water privatisation'.

EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans

The agreement will ban the sale of carbon-emitting cars after 2035. The EU Commission will present a proposal for e-fuels after pressure from German negotiators via a delegated act, which can still be rejected by the EU Parliament.

'Final warning' to act on climate change, warns IPCC

The United Nations's report — synthesising years of climate, biodiversity, and nature research — paints a picture of the effects of global warming on the natural world, concluding there is "no time for inaction and delays."

Opinion

Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad

The EU and the bioenergy industry claim trees cut for energy will regrow, eventually removing extra CO2 from the atmosphere. But regrowth is not certain, and takes time, decades or longer. In the meantime, burning wood makes climate change worse.

Opinion

EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict

Solar panels, wind-turbines, electric vehicle batteries and other green technologies require minerals including aluminium, cobalt and lithium — which are mined in some of the most conflict-riven nations on earth, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, and Kazakhstan.

Latest News

  1. EU to press South Korea on arming Ukraine
  2. Aid agencies clam up in Congo sex-for-work scandal
  3. Ukraine — what's been destroyed so far, and who pays?
  4. EU sending anti-coup mission to Moldova in May
  5. Firms will have to reveal and close gender pay-gap
  6. Why do 83% of Albanians want to leave Albania?
  7. Police violence in rural French water demos sparks protests
  8. Work insecurity: the high cost of ultra-fast grocery deliveries

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains
  2. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  3. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us