Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Commission wants more EU farm aid transparency

  • The European Commission wants member states to publish the names of EU farm recipients (Photo: freefotouk)

The European Commission adopted rules on Tuesday (25 September) to increase transparency on farmers who receive billions in EU subsidies every year.

"We not only have to reform the CAP [common agricultural policy] to make it easier to understand but we also need to make it absolutely transparent," EU agriculture commissioner Dacian Ciolos told reporters in Brussels.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

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

... or subscribe as a group

The new rules require member states to publish the first and last names of beneficiaries as well as the reasons why they obtain the funds. The aim, says the commission, is to better protect the EU coffer from fraud.

CAP makes up a third of the EU budget, with farmers and agricultural-related programmes receiving some €55 billion each year. The money is supposed to help rural development and guarantee EU food security.

Member states were already required to publish some data online by April every year. But pro-transparency groups like farmsubsidy.org in the past found that many regularly fail to provide comprehensive details on how the money is spent, who receives it, and why.

The NGO in May ranked Luxembourg the least transparent, while others, such as Ireland, France, Italy and the Netherlands have created online databases which are extremely hard to navigate.

Stories of massive fraud abound, with individuals receiving subsidies for farms that do not exist.

Olaf, the EU's anti-fraud office, recovered €691 million in stolen funds from the EU budget in 2011, of which €524.7 million had been siphoned off from structural funds. Around €113.7 million was drawn from customs and another €34 million from EU agricultural subsidies.

Ciolos said the revised rules will compel national authorities to reveal both direct aid to farmers and funding for rural development programmes.

The new rules will not apply to small farmers or small land holdings in order to safeguard personal privacy, however. The exception follows a November 2010 judgement by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on privacy for natural persons which prompted the commission to suspend the publication of recipients' names.

The commission says the new rules do not infringe the judgement because they are "centred on the need for public control over the use of European agricultural funds."

Bulgaria lets conmen off the hook

For his part, Peter Keller, from the German customs service, on Monday told the European Parliament's organised crime committee that he has been unable to fully bring to justice the perpetrators in a huge EU-fund-fraud case, despite overwhelming evidence.

Investigators in 2008 uncovered a number of German machine manufacturers working with Bulgarian buyers to steal EU funds, Keller said.

The cases involved the so-called "Sapard" programme - an EU initiative worth about €100 million a year which aims to help upgrade agricultural sectors in central and eastern member states.

The scam centred around Bulgarian food processing companies which bought German-made equipment and claimed back EU subsidies from Sapard officials - a decentralised administration which is only audited "ex-post" by the EU.

Sellers and buyers colluded to bump up the list price on machines and Sapard paid out EU cash based on the invoices.

The firms involved then redistributed the overpayments and the EU money via brokers and secret accounts.

Keller said the affair cost the EU €7.8 million, but its exposure prevented the loss of another €68 million.

He secured convictions for the German companies involved, but Bulgarian prosecutors have suspended investigations. "These are people who have been proven to have defrauded others ... It is completely incomprehensible why Bulgaria has not produced any accusation of a legal nature," he said.

Finnish PM: Russia preparing for 'long conflict with West'

Finland, which shares a border with Russia, has cautioned about the danger of a Russian attack in coming years. Russia is not "invincible" but "self-satisfaction is no longer an option," Finnish prime minister Petteri Orpo said.

EU Commission proposes opening Bosnia accession talks

Eight years on, the EU Commission is to recommend on Tuesday that member states open accession talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina after the country took "impressive steps" to meet the bloc's standards, Ursula von der Leyen said.

Opinion

How the EU can raise its game in the Middle East

Could the EU repair its reputation and credibility by taking action on Gaza? EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, Spain, Belgium and Ireland, have worked hard to repair the damage, but have faced political headwinds due to internal divisions.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsThis autumn Europalia arts festival is all about GEORGIA!
  2. UNOPSFostering health system resilience in fragile and conflict-affected countries
  3. European Citizen's InitiativeThe European Commission launches the ‘ImagineEU’ competition for secondary school students in the EU.
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersThe Nordic Region is stepping up its efforts to reduce food waste
  5. UNOPSUNOPS begins works under EU-funded project to repair schools in Ukraine
  6. Georgia Ministry of Foreign AffairsGeorgia effectively prevents sanctions evasion against Russia – confirm EU, UK, USA

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us