Are we as taxpayers getting good value for money from agri-environment payments under the EU’s rural development (RD) policy? This is an important question, given that agri-environment payments will amount to around €22 billion during the 2007-2013 RD programming period, alone accounting for around 23% of all Pillar 2 spending. It becomes more important given that the Commission is flagging that it wants to direct even more funding towards the provision of environmental public goods in the next programming period.
A European Court of Auditors report published last Monday (September 19) provides a rather critical response to this question.… Read the rest