How much does the EU spend on farm subsidies each year?

How to get close to this number

Take a share of the budget. The explanation gives it: roughly a third of the entire EU budget, and the bloc's budget runs to somewhere around a hundred and seventy billion a year. A third of that gives a figure in the tens of billions.

The mismatch in the explanation is what makes this politically remarkable: a third of the budget for a sector employing under five percent of workers. Very few spending programmes survive a ratio that lopsided, and this one has for over sixty years.

The reason is in the description: it is the oldest and most politically protected policy the bloc has. It was part of the founding bargain, it has a concentrated and well-organised beneficiary group against a diffuse cost borne by everyone, and that asymmetry is the standard structure of durable subsidy politics everywhere.