Agriculture, Ecology, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation, Markets and Companies

Under the draft legislation, which runs to around 1000 pages, 30% of the direct payments will be dependent on the farmer growing at least three crops and putting aside seven% of farmland for "ecological purposes."

The commission has also attempted to narrow the glaring discrepancy between the subsidies that farmers in the west are paid and the aid given to farmers in the poorer eastern states that joined the EU in 2004, reports LETA/ELTA, referring to EUObserver.

The Netherlands – with a reduction of 7% by 2020 – is set lose the most from the redistribution, followed by Belgium and Italy.

However, farmers in the three Baltic States will see their subsidized incomes rise significantly over the same period.

In Latvia, currently at the bottom of the pay-out list, farmers could see the payments per hectare go from around 87 euros in 2013 to 140 euros in 2020, a rise of over 62%. In addition, from 2019, pay-outs will no longer be permitted to be linked to production but will based on the number of hectares owned by a farmer.

Another significant change will see payment per year to a single farm capped at 300,000 euros, with the EU's farm policy shown to have spawned a series of CAP millionaires, and not always for their farming prowess – but still they can earn over and above that by being "innovative".

The negotiations on the multiannual budget for the same 2014-2020 period, where it has been proposed to spend 371.7 billion on CAP, will run parallel to the farm funding talks. Only when this figure has been fixed will the final figures become clear.

As reported, Estonian farmers protested on Wednesday in front of the European Commission's Estonian representation in Tallinn against the EU reform plan according to which the support allocated to Estonian farmers is clearly below the EU average level.

The reform plan does not satisfy Baltic States' farmers and does not observe the EU solidarity principle, farmers organizations state.

The Estonian farmers would get by over two times less support than the EU 27 states average.

Estonian Farmers Confederation deputy president Jaan Sõrra expressed hope that the protests against the EU reform plan that took place today simultaneously in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would be listened to in the European Commission. A demonstration also took place in Brussels where representatives of all three Baltic states were present.

On October 12, more than 500 Latvian farmers will hold simultaneous rallies in Brussels and Riga to protest against the unfair European Union single area payments.