The UAE’s ruling royal family is benefiting from tens of millions in EU subsidies to grow crops destined for the Gulf, it can be revealed.
A new cross-border investigation, shared with The Guardian, found that subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected over €71 million (£61 million) in just six years for farmland it controls in Romania, Italy and Spain.
The Al Nahyan family is the second richest in the world, with an estimated wealth of more than $320 billion (£235 billion), mostly derived from the emirates’ vast oil reserves.
Subsidies under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) make up a third of the EU’s entire budget, paying out around €54 billion (£46.6 billion) each year to farmers and rural areas across the bloc. But an unknown proportion of this ends up in the hands of foreign investors — including those controlled by autocratic states.
This story was published in partnership with The Guardian, eldiario, and G4media.
