The Netherlands substantially increases its share of the CAP allocation

The European Commission published, on the 17th of September, the draft national allocations of the Common Agricultural Policy, for the period 2028-2034 in the context of the ongoing negotiations of the next multi-annual financial framework. Given the stated desire by the European Commission to focus the CAP on “those who need it most”, questions arise as to the relevance and modalities of a distribution key that makes the Netherlands, by far, the relative “winners” of the European Commission’s proposal, or the « best looser ». Without undermining the importance of the agricultural sector in the Netherlands, and its high productivity per hectare, it’s important to remind that over the last years, farmers in this Member State benefited from a national top-up of comfortable State Aids which overall represents at least 100% of their direct payments during the last four years.