At the heart of the negotiations over the European Union budget lies the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). At the heart of the world trade talks in Hong Kong lies the CAP. Both sets of talks are deadlocked because of the CAP, whose subsidies keep millions of farmers in the developing world mired in poverty. It forms the core of an eccentric EU budget that robs the continent of diplomatic dignity and economic sanity. But the CAP is apparently off limits, thanks largely to France. So the CAP lives on. Which is good news for those at the heart of the CAP, some of whom were identified in official documents yesterday; these are the “poor”, defenceless European “farmers” being propped up.

They include: Prince Albert II of Monaco, a monarch, who received at least £200,000 in 2003-04 for his 1,730 acres of farmland in northern France; Queen Elizabeth II, another monarch, who runs a farm in Norfolk and is worth £270 million. She received at least £155,000. Neither is known, at first blush, to be children of the soil. One does not have to rule by divine right, though, to profit from the CAP.

Cees Veerman, a Dutch Minister, received £112,500. Mr Veerman’s government responsibilities involve, as it happens, agriculture. He threatened to resign if his Prime Minister supported Tony Blair over CAP reform, successfully scuppering such moves. Rémy Pointereau, a French Senator, received £81,000. Luc Guyau, head of the Association of Chambers of Agriculture, the powerful French farming lobby, received £33,500.

In Denmark, four of the 18-strong Cabinet or their spouses receive CAP cash running into millions. So, to the tune of £33,000, does the husband of Marian Fischer Boel. She happens to be the European Commissioner for Agriculture, or Ms CAP, as she might be known.

Britons, the Queen apart, also gain. The Duke of Westminster, an aristocrat worth £5 billion and Britain’s richest man, received £174,000. The Duke of Marlborough, an aristocrat who lives in a palace, received £198,500. The Duke of Bedford, an aristocrat and the country’s 102nd richest man, received £142,000. The Earl of Plymouth, an aristocrat whose former ancestral home in Worcestershire is now an open prison, received £178,250.

It is not vital to be an individual landowner to benefit. Tate & Lyle, the British company whose turnover is an annual £3 billion, received nearly £120 million in CAP subsidies in 2004. Arla Foods, a Danish sister company to Arla Foods UK that turns over £1.1 billion, received £99 million. Tiense Suikerraffinaderij, a Belgian company, received £61.5 million. In the Netherlands, the biggest recipients of CAP money include the Dutch arm of Mars, the confectionary group, Heineken, the brewer, and Philip Morris, the US tobacco manufacturer.

In 2003 the richest 6.5 per cent of European farmers claimed 55 per cent of total CAP subsidies. In Spain, the richest 18 per cent received 76 per cent. About 37,000 Spanish family farms disappear each year. The EU is reaping what it sows.