Stop enriching oligarchs with agriculture funds!

To: EU Member States

The EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) accounts for over 1/3 of the EU's whole budget. As the largest budget item of the Union, CAP direct payments to farmers play a huge role in shaping agricultural production and practices all over Europe.

CAP payments are allocated based on hectares of land, which means big industrial agricultural complexes are the winners and small and more sustainable farmers are left in the dust.

A study by the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament followed the trail of CAP funds in Central and Eastern Europe and found that taxpayers' money is used to fuel fraud, corruption and undermine rule of law. Measures are lacking to monitor where funds are going and who the actual beneficiaries are.

To gain control over this measure we need to put a cap on how much each beneficiary can receive from the funds. That way we can make sure we are able to support small farmers and rural development, instead of pouring huge amounts of money into the pockets of oligarchs, large property owners, investment funds and multinational corporations.

We therefore demand a mandatory capping of CAP funds at 100 000 euros per final beneficiary, as well as the implementation of strong control mechanisms on how funds are distributed. Let's put a cap on CAP!