EU forced to back down on payments cut

GERMANY and Britain, supported by the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Slovakia, have forced the EU to back down from a plan to cut the biggest subsidy payouts to farmers.

The commission had proposed to cut payouts to farmers receiving €100,000 or more, by between 10% and 45%.

British and German farmers would have been hit hardest. As well as aristocrats in Britain and the owners of former communist co-op farms in eastern Germany, Czech and Danish farmers would also have suffered. More than 50% of Czech farmers, owning 98% of Czech farmland, would have been affected. Some 80% of EU farm subsidies go to about 20% of its farmers.