Transparency Index
The farmsubsidy.org Transparency Index is a way of comparing how well EU member states are doing at providing information on who gets what from the Common Agricultural Policy.
The scores are out of 100 and are weighted averages based on a number of criteria including: the number of years for which data has been released; the amount of detail in the data, e.g. geographical location, description of subsidy schemes, date, currency etc; the format of disclosure (we give extra points for disclosure of raw data in a machine-readable format and we penalise disclosure in PDF files). They are calculated and regularly updated by Nils Mulvad, co-founder of farmsubsidy.org.
Countries that release comprehensive and detailed data in a machine-readable format will score highly. A country that simply follows the EU law on disclosure will score around 35%. We classify countries scoring above 50% as good (shaded green on the map), countries scoring above 30% as poor (shaded amber) and less than 30% as really bad (shaded red).
We welcome countries that have worked with us to improve their transparency scores, such as the governments of Lithuania and Malta. The best way for countries to score highly is to release to us the highly detailed 'matrix' data files that they are required by law to submit to the European Commission for audit purposes. Currently only Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom have released their matrix files but we hope other countries will follow suit and thereby climb further up the Transparency Index.
You can view how the scores were calculated here.
| Rank | Country | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Sweden | 92% |
| 2nd | Denmark | 91% |
| 3rd | United Kingdom | 89% |
| 4th | Lithuania | 85% |
| 5th | Czech Republic | 74% |
| 5th | Estonia | 74% |
| 7th | Belgium | 66% |
| 8th | Malta | 62% |
| 9th | Romania | 58% |
| 10th | Hungary | 54% |
| 11th | Bulgaria | 49% |
| 12th | Latvia | 48% |
| 12th | Slovenia | 48% |
| 14th | Poland | 47% |
| 15th | Austria | 46% |
| 15th | Finland | 46% |
| 17th | Spain | 44% |
| 18th | Slovakia | 43% |
| 19th | Germany | 42% |
| 19th | Ireland | 42% |
| 21st | Cyprus | 39% |
| 21st | France | 39% |
| 23rd | Italy | 35% |
| 23rd | Netherlands | 35% |
| 23rd | Portugal | 35% |
| 26th | Luxembourg | 32% |
| 27th | Greece | 25% |
