"Most of the citizens of the EU do know that the CAP exists – but many don't know what it's about, because we have not always got the message through to them about how it has changed over the years. So their view of the CAP is essentially the myth that it is an expensive engine of over-production which also lays waste to the countryside.To explode this myth, we have to attack it in two ways. We have to explain what the money is spent on and we also have to be open about how much money is spent.
At present, 13 EU Member States give access to information about beneficiaries of the CAP – though in different formats. Why do I say 13 Member States? Because, I have just received information that Latvia can be added to the list mentioned on the Farmsubsidy website.
The Commission would now like to go further. We think Member States should be obliged to publish annually – for example, on a website - the list of all those who receive funds under policies managed jointly by the Commission and Member States. That would include all spending under the CAP: on direct payments, market measures and rural development.
In the past, most payments made to farmers under the CAP were linked to production. But as we implement the reforms agreed in 2003 and more recently, we are cutting that link. We are giving farmers "decoupled" payments when they observe strict standards of environmental care, animal welfare and public health.
This is called the Single Payment Scheme, and by 2011 it will account for nearly 90% of direct payments to farmers.
So the public money which goes to farmers does not disappear into a black hole, as some people think. It pays our farmers for the public goods that we expect from them: clean air and water, an attractive countryside, a high level of food safety.
We should also remember that, from 2007 to 2013, nearly 70 billion of CAP funding from the central EU budget will be spent on wider rural development, including but not limited to the farm sector.
Further, it is well known that some farm businesses receive very large CAP payments. It's also significant that the Single Payment Scheme has generated many thousands of very small subsidy entitlements – for amounts which are worth less than the cost of administering them.
With regard to both of these payment categories – the very large and the very small – I would like to look carefully at how well they fit into the evolving principles of the CAP. Are they an effective and efficient means of rewarding farmers for providing public goods? Does the Single Payment Scheme work as well at the margins as it does overall?
And if the answer to these questions is "no", then should we impose top and bottom limits to what farmers can receive under the Single Payment Scheme?
I would like to come to a decision on this issue when the Commission conducts its "health check" of the CAP in 2008.
The text above is an abstract from the speech Time for Transparency on CAP Payments". For further details see:http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture