Direct payments
- Farmers receive direct payments from the EU that are not related to their current production. (Photo: Lis Lak Risager)
Instead of price support for agricultural products, agricultural reform in the EU has shifted towards direct payments to farmers. These payments are according to the size of farmland or levels of previous production, without relation to current production.
The separation of farmer subsidies and income from the volume of the farm output is also referred to as the “de-coupling” of income from production.
During their first year of EU membership, farmers in the 10 new EU member states receive 25% of what farmers in the currrent member states receive. The amount will gradually rise and will be 100% by 2013.
Notes
- The enlargement negotiations allocated 25% of the direct payments currently available to EU farmers to farmers in the applicant countries.
- During the 2002 Copenhagen Summit some applicant countries were permitted to add extra national subsidies to the direct payments from the EU budgets by topping up.
- Farmers in Poland may thereby obtain 60% of the income support currently being obtained by their EU counterparts in Western Europe.
Links
See also the Common Agricultural Policy.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/agri....../external/enlarge/index_en.htm
