The EU is replete with examples of how a bureaucratic process is made into a god and they lose sight of the objectives intended to be achieved by that process. Process keepers in Brussels have become more important than process objectives.
The latest example is of subsidies paid to a Saudi billionaire for a farm he owns in the UK where he breeds racehorses.
Taxpayers are paying more than £400,000 a year to subsidise a farm where a billionaire Saudi prince breeds racehorses.
The Newmarket farm of Khalid Abdullah al Saud – owner of the legendary horse Frankel – is among the top 100 recipients of EU farm grants in the UK.
The system’s critics say Brexit will let the UK redirect £3bn in subsidies towards protecting the environment.
A spokesman for the prince declined to comment.
Farm subsidies swallow a huge chunk of the EU’s budget. They were started after World War Two to stimulate production, but led to food mountains that had to be dumped.
A compromised reform process – the so-called “greening” of the Common Agricultural Policy – resulted in farmers mostly being paid depending on how much land they own.
Frankel owned by Khalid Abdullah al Saud
Tags: subsidies
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