Ahead of negotiations that start in earnest this fall with the Council of the EU, which represents the bloc’s 27 member countries, we crunched the numbers on which countries may be most affected by the proposed changes to the CAP in the bloc’s next seven-year fiscal term.
Big picture
In the 2023 financial year, 20 percent of the EU’s farms received 80 percent of direct payments. The majority of these payments are decoupled area-based payments, meaning that farmers are paid per hectare regardless of what they produce.
This means large-scale farms can benefit from huge payouts.
In order to limit these, the EU’s new proposal would allow member countries to pay farmers anywhere from €130 to €240 on average per hectare. No individual farmer would receive more than €100,000 annually in area-based income support.
Up to that threshold, member countries would need to progressively reduce the amount of money paid out to farmers depending on the amount (e.g. a 25 percent reduction between €20,000 and €50,000 or 50 percent between €50,000 and €70,000).
In the firing line
Over 54 percent of the money paid out as decoupled payments in the 2023 financial year was spent on payments over €20,000. That suggests over half of decoupled payment spending could have been subject to capping or degressivity if the Commission’s proposed rules were in place at the time.
