CAP DIRECT PAYMENTS AS THE MAIN TOOL TO SUPPORT THE EU FARMERS: AN ANALYSIS OF THEIR IMPLEMENTATION BASED ON SPAIN EXPERIENCE

Direct payments are the main tool of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the main objective is to support EU farmers incomes. They benefit from a particular attention during the new 2014-2020 reform. For the first time direct payments were introduced in 1992 after MacSharry reform and known as coupled payments (payments per hectare and animal head). In 2003 were introduced the decoupled payments focused at encouraging farmers and enhancing the competitiveness and sustainability of the EU agriculture. The aim of this paper is to analyze the application of direct payments as main support instrument to the EU farmers based on Spain experience. In Spain the new changes in the Single Payment Scheme (SPS) were first introduced in 2006, beginning with the regime of partial decoupling, until 2012, when the coupled payments disappeared, being integrated under the SPS or transformed into additional payment. In this analysis, secondary data provided by the Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA), Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment of Spain (MAGRAMA) and Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN. The analyzed data refers to the amount of allocated direct payments in Spain and EU countries, number of beneficiaries and its distribution on territorial aspect. So far, the distribution of direct payments in Spain, similar to other EU member states, is unequal, as a result of various factors, as the CAP development and diversity of production, the use of historical references to fix the decoupled payments per farm and others.