| Direct payments have progressively become the largest and most visible form of support in the CAP tool-box. Analyses on direct payments have always highlighted a large inequality in their distribution, both between Member States and, within them, among farmers and territories where, on one side, a relevant amount of payments is concentrated in the hands of a few beneficiaries; on the other, a small share of support is divided among many heads. The European Commission has faced the problem of the volume and the distribution of the direct payments with two main instruments: the modulation and the capping. Modulation was originally conceived as a temporary tool aimed at filling the gap between pillars, but in the last years it has changed shape and rules... |
