The largest beneficiaries of farm subsidies in Poland are not farmers but corporations. The story of other EU-states, where data have been published, thus is repeated in this most recent move for transparency, which came during the Polish government crisis this summer. The only farmer among the top 10 recipients is a former senator, Henryk Stokłosa , who currently is in hiding after an arrest warrant was issued by the Polish government for corruption and tax offences, according to Gazeta Wyborcza. The largest recipients were foreign farming companies. More than €3 million went to farms owned by Spearhead International Ltd from Britain, while Danish Poldanor in Przechlewo received €1.9 million. Among the recipients is former minister of agriculture Andrzej Lepper of the EU-critical Self-Defence-Party (Samoobrona). He received €5 843 from EU taxpayers in 2006.
The Polish government had been preparing to open data as of 2009, as agreed by all EU member states. However on the initiative of an MP of the far right League of Polish Families, an amendment was passed to publish the data in 2008, tells Andrzej Krajewski, journalist and farmsubsidy.org network member. During the summer’s government crisis the data were published on the internet of the Ministry of Agriculture in July. “In the moment of political void, the opinion of experts rules,” Krajewski laughs. The move by the government agency comes after a long struggle by Krajewski, who first applied in August of 2005. Since then he allied with the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation’s strategic litigation program, requesting the data through court cases, that are still ongoing. The data released is deficient in many important details and so Krajewski’s case will continue to force Poland to meet the standards of the most transparent EU member states. “We decided to go on, because we want to know, what has been given since the beginning,” says Maciej Bernatt, one of the legal advisors at the Foundation. If necessary the team will bring the question to the constitutional court to test whether the practice of secrecy is against the Polish constitution. The data released is now available on the farmsubsidy.org database.
