UK and France ordered to repay misspent livestock subsidies

The order follows investigations by Brussels, which identified deficiencies in how French authorities verify the eligibility criteria for paying EU sheep premiums, resulting in a demand that the French government recover €1.335m from French sheep farmers.

And the Commission also probed payments made illegally in the UK to producers when animals had both ear tags missing. It also found some British livestock producers had been able to retain subsidies, even after irregularities in subsidy applications had been detected by British officials. Brussels concluded that some undue payments had been made because of delays in updating the UK’s subsidy monitoring database. The Commission ordered that British officials recover €777,000 in subsidies as a result.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg has also been asked to recover €279,000 in rural development spending for livestock producers because of weaknesses and poor traceability in the Grand Duchy’s financial controls, notably regarding on-the-spot assessments and a lack of comparison of results with other checks.

A Commission note said the money would be returned to the EU budget, stressing that “Member states are responsible for paying out and checking expenditure under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and the Commission is required to ensure that member states have made correct use of the funds.”​

Brussels carries out more than 100 audits every year to make sure national controls are sufficient and that governments reclaim subsidies found to have been paid in error or following fraud. If member states are not policing CAP subsidies properly, the Commission can demand undeserved subsidies be repaid.