The special report issued by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) shows that thanks to the European agri-environment support aims to respond to society's increasing demand for environmental services by encouraging farmers and other land managers to introduce or continue to apply agricultural production methods compatible with the protection and improvement of the environment. The report shows on the other hand, the existing problems concerning the aid amounts.

The European Court of Auditors’ (ECA) performance audit concluded that it has been made a significant progress in the 20 years since the policy was first introduced. However it found that the objectives were overall too vague to be useful for assessing the extent to which they have been achieved; the policy was not designed and monitored so as to deliver tangible environmental benefits.

Moreover, the report also assessed that the systems for providing guidance to farmers were generally well implemented. However, considerable problems were identified concerning the aid amounts, ranging from shortcomings in their calculation to a lack of differentiation according to regional or local site conditions. Member States are required to make support available in accordance with specific needs. They had not considered the desirable degree of targeting to their needs on the basis of an analysis of costs and benefits involved.

Following these conclusions, the ECA makes a series of recommendations in its special report to improve the implementation of agri-environment policy. For instance, the Commission should consider for the next programming period whether expenditure should be more precisely targeted to specific environmental needs; while the Member States should collect and report relevant and reliable data on environmental benefits and use it for monitoring purposes. While the Court found that farmers are generally well supported through appropriate guidance, it recommends that the dissemination of good practices be improved.