Germany: Activists win 2nd important agricultural victory

Two weeks ago German activists announced their first victory against the secretive allocation of EU agrarian funds. Detailed information about all the beneficiaries of EU agricultural subsidies were in fact made public for the first time in Nord Rhein Westfalia early on in November. Now, the ?EU agrarian funds Transparency initiative? promoted by 35 German NGOs including Greenpeace and Oxfam, are celebrating their second victory. Public authorities in Brandenburg released, on the 20th November, a list that declares the amount of funding that was granted in 2005.

The results show that ? the 100 main beneficiaries ? 1,5% of the companies – in 2005 received a total of 92 million euros, that is to say 25% of the total EU direct funding for Brandenburg. On the other hand more than 5 thousand companies (85% of all companies) were allocated 80 million euros? says Ulrich Jasper, spokesman for the consortium of rural agriculture.

According to Jasper there is a clear connection between the size of the company and the amount of funding companies receive: the bigger the company the bigger the subsidy. What?s wrong with this logic? Jasper explains that with this logic funds are not granted according to the amount of people employed by the company. ?This means that companies are encouraged to decrease the number of employees rather than to create new positions, to increase their properties rather than to add values and create new jobs? he says.

Although the lists have been made public, it is still unclear what criteria is being used to allocate the funds, highlights Martina Wiggerthale, agrarian expert at Oxfam Germany. ?We are still not sure why some companies receive more funding than others. The only thing we know is the amount they are receiving, but not why, for example whether there were specific applications based on specific projects.?

Martin Hofstetter from Greenpeace Germany is highly critical about the secretiveness regarding business carried out by companies that work with and affect the environment in such a direct way. ?From the lists it is impossible to determine whether the farms are investing in organic farming or not, nor how the animals are being treated. These are important details for tax payers, who would like to see their money supporting environmental, ecological and animal friendly agriculture? says Hofstetter.

The solution proposed by the European Commission is to cut agrarian funds to big companies down to no more that 100 thousand euros a year. Bund party representative Reinhild Benning explains that if this were so, the rest of the money could go to a fund managed by the government that would invest it in measures against climate change and to protect biodiversity. This way small and big farms who do organic farming would profit as well, he says.

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