Brussel maant Finland tot spoed in verbeteren transparantie (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has drafted a letter scolding the Finnish EU presidency for foot-dragging on plans to publish who receives what from the EU's €43 billion a year farm aid pot, after Germany this week agreed to full disclosure on recipients of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds.

The letter - which has not yet been sent and is due to be signed either by administration commissioner Siim Kallas or commission president Jose Manuel Barroso -suggests that Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen is not living up to lofty promises on transparency made in a keynote address to MEPs on 21 June.

"Transparency will help us win citizens' confidence and enhance the EU's legitimacy," Mr Vanhanen said back in June. But so far Finland is among a group of 12 member states resisting commission and NGO pressure to make data public from 2007 onward.

The transparency scheme comes at a sensitive time, with the commission set to launch in 2008 a major review of how to permanently reform CAP funding after 2013.

Voluntary disclosures by the UK, Netherlands and Denmark in the past two years have damaged CAP credibility by showing that royalty, government ministers and multinational firms - not poor, struggling farmers - pocket the biggest chunks of cash.

Finnish diplomat Matti Hannula told EUobserver that Helsinki has "no problems" with opening the books, but it wants to wait and see specific proposals on the disclosure system from Mr Kallas before making up its mind.

"It's not presidency business in this sense [to promote Mr Kallas' campaign]," Mr Hannula said, agreeing to have his name published in the traditionally open style of Nordic diplomacy.

"Each member state has its own rights and views in this sense. It's not a question for the presidency to urge member states to change their policy on this information," he added.

Germany defects

Despite the tricky Finnish situation, Mr Kallas' project scored a big win this week when Germany - the biggest EU budget donor and second biggest CAP recipient - said it will publish all direct payments made to its farmers in future.

"We agreed that all data will be published. We've opened up to the publication of all data," a German diplomat told EUobserver, after a tough debate on whether disclosure should cover only payments above a certain level - such as €2 million - and how to bypass privacy laws.

Berlin informed Brussels of its decision during the course of an expert-level committee meeting with the commission on Wednesday, after Mr Kallas last Thursday faxed a letter to five German ministers refuting previous objections.

The commission hopes that getting a heavyweight player such as Germany on board will put pressure on the dissenting group-of-12 member states in a tactic of "targeting" all its resources on one key country a time, with Finland now in the firing line.

Does yes mean yes?

But Brussels is unhappy with Berlin's proposal that data should be published by the commission rather than the regional-level German payment agencies that distribute the funds to individual farmers. "We can only take responsibility for what we control," a commission official said.

On top of this, Brussels is worried that Germany may not be as good as its word when the commission - in the next few months - puts forward its legal amendment to make CAP disclosure mandatory for all 25 member states.

"This is when we will see if the German yes means yes," the commission contact said. "What will Germany do if there is no consensus? Will it make its data public anyway, or will it say 'in that case, we won't do it because the other member states have rejected it'?"