Brussels, 09/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - Prince Albert of Monaco and other rich landowners are some of the biggest beneficiaries of EU Common Agricultural Policy aid to France, explains international charity Oxfam in a press release published on Monday, quoting figures published by French newspaper La Tribune. Oxfam explains that 70% of small French farmers get only 17% of the subsidies doled out by Paris. The European Commission's only statistics show that the top 15% of French farm businesses consume a massive 60% of EU direct payments. 'This gives a lie to the French argument that it used EU subsidies to support its small farmers. They plainly don't,' explains Oxfam.
Prince Albert of Monaco, whose personal fortune is estimated to be worth EUR 2 bn, got EUR 287308 in EU farm subsidies in 2004, explains Oxfam, for his nearly 700 hectares of arable farm in the Aisne region of northern France. The two biggest French recipients of EU aid between them get EUR 1.7 million a year from the CAP. La Tribune quotes the case of an unnamed Camargue rice farmer in France with 1733 hectares of rice-fields, and the owner of 1500 hectares of irrigated maize fields in Aquitaine.
Oxfam has been instrumental in helping expose the huge inequalities in farm spending that exist in the UK, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Slovakia and France. In the UK, Oxfam says that the despite the great rhetoric, the UK does not always pull its weight to bring about change. In the 2003 CAP negotiations, the UK blocked a proposal to restrict annual farm subsidies for farms of more than 1000 hectares to £187000. In March this year, under pressure from Oxfam, the UK government released figures showing that sugar company Tate & Lyle was the biggest recipient of EU subsidies in 2003-2004 (£120 mil), followed by several members of the Royal Family, like the Duke of Westminster (£448,000), one of the richest men in the UK, and Queen Elizabeth (in 93rd position, receiving an annual subsidy of around £400,000).
Oxfam points out that in Spain, 303 'golden names' in Spanish farming receive more than EUR 398 mil each year (more than EUR 1.3 mil for each farm). The seven biggest farms got 14.5 mil euros, the same amount as is shared out among the 12700 smallest Spanish farmers. In Denmark, four Danish cabinet ministers, several of its MPs and even the country's first EU Commissioner (Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel) receive payments under the Common Agricultural Policy running into millions of euros. In the Netherlands, farm minister Cees Veerman receives EUR 150,000 in subsidies, while in Slovakia, farm minister Szolt Simon was recently reported to be the owner of a company creaming EUR 1.3 mil in subsidies in 2003 and 2004.