Ukraine joining the European Union would mean a 20 per cent cut in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments to farmers, according to a leaked EU document calculating the potential cost of accession.
Prepared by the EU’s Council secretariat over the summer, the paper was reported by the Financial Times and details the cost of adding the agricultural behemoth to the EU system under current rules.
It lays out that Ukraine would displace France as the EU’s single largest recipient of CAP funding with 41.1 million hectares of utilised agricultural area if current rules were unchanged.
It would be entitled to €96.5 billion in CAP payments over seven years, meaning a cut to existing recipients of 20.3 per cent per hectare of qualifying farmland, according to the report.
The study examined the implications of adding Ukraine to the EU – as well as Moldova, Georgia, and six western Balkan states at a time when the 27 existing members are debating whether and how to accept new countries to the EU.
The other eight aspirant countries would together be eligible for €29.9 billion in CAP payments, according to the study.
Ukraine has pushed for its membership application to be advanced as soon as possible and for accession negotiations to begin before the end of the year.
Russia’s invasion has revived momentum for the expansion of the EU and raised the hopes of several countries whose candidacies had been stalled for years.
The paper details that expansion would strengthen the EU’s geopolitical clout and help with labour shortages, increasing the size of the internal market to 517 million people from 415 million.
The financial implications would be significant, however. Adding all nine aspirant countries would cost €256.8 billion in the EU’s budget, the multiannual financial framework, increasing the size of the current budget by 21 per cent.
If current rules were unchanged, existing net contributors to the budget such as Ireland would see their payments increase while many countries that are currently net recipients would become net payers.
“All member states will have to pay more to and receive less from the EU budget; many member states who are currently net receivers will become net contributors,” the study concludes, according to the report.
Under current rules Ukraine would be eligible for €61 billion in cohesion funding, which is paid to economically weaker countries to even out EU imbalances.
The paper estimates that with nine new member states the EU’s current budget would increase by 21 per cent to €1.47 trillion, equivalent to about 1.4 per cent of the 36 countries’ gross national income.
The EU Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment but told the Financial Times it would not comment on leaks.
It comes as leaders of the 27 member states prepare to meet in Spain this week for the first serious discussions about potential enlargement in many years.
Several countries have suggested that if the EU is to incorporate more countries, it will first have to undergo major reforms to ensure it will continue to function.
An EU official said the talks would mean a rethink of the purpose of the EU and how it works: “what do we do together” and “how do we pay for it”.
Ireland’s policy has been to strongly support Ukraine’s accession to the EU as well as the hopes of other aspirant countries.
“We support enlargement,” Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and defence Micheál Martin told reporters on a visit to Kyiv on Monday.
“Ireland has been very supportive from the beginning of the Ukraine accession application to join the European Union ... we’re looking forward to ongoing discussions.”
