engleski

Transparency of EU Budget ─ Case of CAP

The importance of CAP is today growing, due to the fact that financial assistance is necessary to prevent land abandonment and rural depopulation, especially since farmers’ age structure today is old and young farmers must be attracted. Since forming groups enables collective products sale and can consequently result in more market power, CAP transparency is an imperative. Farmers, as well as all other interested parties, should be able to rely upon a clear and simple web sources in order to obtain the information necessary to manage their farms or to use it for other purposes. The available informing possibilities are therefore numerous. The starting points for CAP transparency are the decisions and legislative acts made by the EU, which should be transparent, that is, taken as openly as possible. That concerns all stages of documents preparation, and the final product of legal act. This thesis shows that the EU with time developed a good legal base for transparency of the CAP. Data on who receives the CAP funding, that is, figures covering payments to beneficiaries from both the EAGF, which includes direct payments or market measures and the EAFRD, which has a range of funding opportunities available, including structural investments, installation of young farmers or agri-environment schemes, is today available. As for the latter fundings, which represent co-funded measures, the published amounts correspond to the total public funding, including both the EU and the national contribution, thus making the method of publication appropriate, and the data thorough enough. On the other hand, the amount of published statistical data on CAP is huge, but the analysis showed that it could be better organised. Further, the information measures oriented on CAP, from their side, not only help EU citizens to understand the CAP and promote their involvement in the decision-making process, but influence also the presentation of statistical data. It is therefore necessary to keep or even enhance the current EU methods for monitoring and evaluation of CAP functioning, because it's the most effective way to detect and implement possible improvements of CAP transparency.

EU budget transparency; Common Agricultural Policy

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