EU farm money unduly spent by Member States is claimed back as a result of a decision adopted by the European Commission. The money returns to the Community budget because of inadequate control procedures or non-compliance with EU rules on agricultural expenditure. 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.

Main financial corrections

Under this latest decision, the 27th since the 1995 reform of the system for recovering unduly spent CAP money, funds will be recovered from Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Portugal. The most significant individual corrections are:
 

• € 54.9 million charged to Spain for unauthorised planting of vineyards in years 2003 and 2004;
• € 11.0 million charged to France for non-respect of recognition criteria concerning producers' groups operating in fruits and vegetables sector and for not satisfying level of assistance delivered by them to the individual producers.
• € 0.77 million charged to Ireland due to the milk powder for casein: weaknesses in sampling procedure of production batches.

Spain leadering the corrections in CAP.

More than 70% of the corrections from this Decision corresponds with Spanish clearance of accounts. In absolute figures corrections are for € 59.6 millions. In January 2008, Spain suffered another correction of € 205 millons in the Common Agricultural Policy due to problems with the olive.