The European Union gave generous farming subsidies to the companies of more than a dozen billionaires between 2018 and 2021, the Guardian can reveal, including companies owned by the former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš and the British businessman Sir James Dyson.
Billionaires were "ultimate beneficiaries" linked to €3.3bn (£2.76bn) of EU farming handouts over the four-year period even as thousands of small farms were closed down, according to the analysis of official but opaque data from EU member states.
The 17 "ultimate beneficiaries" who featured on the 2022 Forbes rich list include Babiš, the former Czech prime minister who was acquitted in February of fraud involving farming subsidies; Dyson, the British vacuum cleaner tycoon who argued that Britain should leave the EU and whose company received payments before Brexit; and Guangchang Guo, a Chinese investor who owns Wolverhampton Wanderers football club.
Other billionaire beneficiaries of EU taxpayer funds include Clemens Tönnies, the German meat magnate who admitted he "was wrong" about Vladimir Putin in 2022; Anders Holch Povlsen, the Danish rewilding enthusiast and UK private landowner; and Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the Danish toymaker and former CEO of Lego.
Read more at The Guardian