Germany performs U-turn on farm payouts transparency

The German government has decided to back the European Commission’s campaign to reveal the names of the farmers and farm businesses benefiting from the Union’s €60 billion annual spending on agriculture, according to EU officials.

State secretaries from five federal ministries met in Berlin earlier this week and decided to support the initiative by European Commissioner Siim Kallas to persuade member states to publish a list of the recipients of payments from the EU budget to support farms and rural areas. The names of recipients of the EU regional development funds, whose management is, like the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), shared between the Commission and the member states, would also be published.

Germany was one of five member states which were resisting Kallas’s initiative, and its decision to back the campaign is a major boost for efforts to bring the names of recipients into the open.

Campaigners for greater transparency over farm support payments welcomed the decision. Jack Thurston of farmsubsidy.org, which monitors which member states publish what information, said that getting Germany on board would encourage the few remaining countries to follow suit. "There is a huge domino effect here. It becomes extremely difficult to sustain a policy of secrecy once other countries agree to transparency," he said.

Berlin’s support is particularly important because Germany is the largest gross and net contributor to the EU’s budget, which will average €123bn a year in 2007-13.

It is also a major beneficiary of financial support for farmers and rural areas, receiving around €6.5bn in 2005.

The German government has come under increasing pressure from environmental and consumer campaign groups to reveal which are the biggest beneficiaries of these funds.

Until now, five member states - Germany, Poland, Greece, Finland and Austria - have been opposing the Commission’s initiative. Finland, which currently holds the presidency, is resisting the call for greater transparency but could change its position if other member states agree.

In other member states which have published the names of the biggest beneficiaries, the move has highlighted the tendency for the EU’s farm policy to benefit large farm businesses and landowners rather than helping small family farms. In the UK, sugar multinational Tate & Lyle topped the list, receiving more than €480 million with Swiss food giant Nestlé’s UK operation coming in fifth with €55m.

One effect of the campaign is to increase public pressure for further reform of the EU’s farm spending, shifting funds away from support to large businesses to a form of welfare payments to small farmers and funds to help rural economies.

Berlin has not agreed to publish details of final recipients just yet but is waiting for an agreement at EU level. EU finance ministers will discuss proposed changes to the Union’s rules on expenditure in October.

Germany has also withdrawn its insistence that recipients’ names should be published only if they receive more than €250,000 or if a business has more than 250 employees.

Speaking last week to European farmers’ leaders, who are opposed to plans for greater disclosure, Kallas dismissed their argument in favour of disclosing names only for payments above a certain amount. He said this would be counter-productive to transparency because the aim of the initiative was to show the "diversity and spread of EU funds" not showing that some farmers received very high amounts.

Kallas said that it was "difficult" for the Commission to "communicate credibly to the public on the rationale and effects" of the Common Agricultural Policy "if a significant part of the information is kept secret".

The German government has decided to back the European Commission’s campaign to reveal the names of the farmers and farm businesses benefiting from the Union’s €60 billion annual spending on agriculture, according to EU officials.

• Primary Source