European voters are as unhappy as farmers with the bloc’s protection of agriculture, accounting the largest slice of the EU budget.
Almost half of the respondents in an Ipsos survey of 26,000 European voters conducted for Euronews considered the EU’s actions to impact negatively on the protection of European agriculture and the bloc’s food independence.
Both aspects take centre stage in the EU’s farming subsidies programme, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is also one of the bloc’s biggest cash envelopes.
The poll outcome may be viewed as a substantial failure of the bloc’s key agricultural policy, with EU lawmakers failing to capitalise on funding specifically earmarked for agriculture – which accounts for one-third of the overall EU budget.
While only a fifth of those surveyed were satisfied by the EU’s actions in ensuring protection for Europe’s farming, the discontent seems to peak particularly in countries with the biggest agricultural output, with few exceptions such as Denmark and Romania.
“It’s interesting that respondents in the biggest EU producers, led by France but also Poland, Spain, and Italy, have the most negative views,” Alan Matthews, professor of European Agricultural Policy at the Dublin Trinity College, told Euronews.