National co-financing of CAP direct payments
The Member States should take greater ownership of EU agricultural policy. A co-financing model would also close the funding gap caused by Brexit, writes Professor Alan Matthews.
Today, direct payments to farmers are wholly financed from the EU budget, whereas other major EU spending programmes are co-financed by the Member States. This anomaly has resulted in important efficiency losses for the EU as a whole, according to Alan Matthews, whose major research interest is agricultural policy.
In this analysis, he makes the case for national co-financing of CAP direct payments. This model would give better value-for-money choices, reduce costs and free up EU budget resources.
The author therefore recommends that the idea should be included in the upcoming negotiations on the long-term EU budget, to be applied after UK's departure from the European Union.