The Money Farmers: How Oligarchs and Populists Milk the E.U. for Millions

The European Union spends $65 billion a year subsidizing agriculture. But a chunk of that money emboldens strongmen, enriches politicians and finances corrupt dealing.

By Selam Gebrekidan, Matt Apuzzo and Benjamin Novak of The NY Times. Excerpts:

"Under Communism, farmers labored in the fields that stretch for miles around this town west of Budapest, reaping wheat and corn for a government that had stolen their land.

Today, their children toil for new overlords, a group of oligarchs and political patrons who have annexed the land through opaque deals with the Hungarian government. They have created a modern twist on a feudal system, giving jobs and aid to the compliant, and punishing the mutinous.

These land barons, as it turns out, are financed and emboldened by the European Union.

Every year, the 28-country bloc pays out $65 billion in farm subsidies intended to support farmers around the Continent and keep rural communities alive. But across Hungary and much of Central and Eastern Europe, the bulk goes to a connected and powerful few. The prime minister of the Czech Republic collected tens of millions of dollars in subsidies just last year. Subsidies have underwritten Mafia-style land grabs in Slovakia and Bulgaria.

Europe’s farm program, a system that was instrumental in forming the European Union, is now being exploited by the same antidemocratic forces that threaten the bloc from within. This is because governments in Central and Eastern Europe, several led by populists, have wide latitude in how the subsidies, funded by taxpayers across Europe, are distributed — even as the entire system is shrouded in secrecy.

A New York Times investigation, conducted in nine countries for much of 2019, uncovered a subsidy system that is deliberately opaque, grossly undermines the European Union’s environmental goals and is warped by corruption and self-dealing."

"The program is the biggest item in the European Union’s central budget, accounting for 40 percent of expenditures. It’s one of the largest subsidy programs in the world.

Yet some lawmakers in Brussels who write and vote on farm policy admit they often have no idea where the money goes."

". . . Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orban . . . uses European subsidies as a patronage system that enriches his friends and family, protects his political interests and punishes his rivals."

"The European Union spends three times as much as the United States on farm subsidies each year, but as the system has expanded, accountability has not kept up. National governments publish some information on recipients, but the largest beneficiaries hide behind complex ownership structures. And although farmers are paid, in part, based on their acreage, property data is kept secret, making it harder to track land grabs and corruption. The European Union maintains a master database but, citing the difficulty of downloading the requested information, refused to provide The Times a copy."

"80 percent of the money goes to the biggest 20 percent of recipients. And some of those at the top have used that money to amass political power."

"Farmers who criticize the government or the patronage system say they have been denied grants or faced surprise audits and unusual environmental inspections, in what amounts to a sophisticated intimidation campaign that harkens to the Communist era."

"One man who did speak up was Mr. Angyan, the former under secretary for rural development. A jowly, gray-haired rural economist with a mischievous smile, Mr. Angyan became an unlikely crusader for small farmers. He served under Mr. Orban, initially thinking him a reformer, only to leave angry and disillusioned. He canvassed the countryside, documenting the government’s dubious land deals and mistreatment of small farmers.

And then he disappeared from public life."