(BRUSSELS) - EU nations next year have will have to lift the lid on their agricultural handouts, naming the farmers who receive them and listing the amounts delivered, the European Commission announced Wednesday.

Details of this year's payments will be published on special national web sites from the end of April 2009, thereby lifting the veil on Europe's biggest handout programme, the EU executive arm stipulated.

"This is taxpayers' money, so it is very important that people know where it is being spent," said EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

"Transparency should also improve the management of these funds, by reinforcing public control of how the money is used," she added.

"Only in this way can we guarantee an informed debate about the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)."

Europe currently spends over 40 billion euros (63 billion dollars) a year supporting farmers, some two-fifths of the European Union budget.

Among the major EU farming nations are France, which receives 21 percent of the funding, Spain, 15 percent, and Germany, 14 percent.

The regulations, setting out details of a scheme that was adopted in principle in 2006, have the support of EU member states, the European Commission said.

Such forced transparency breaks traditional confidentiality in the matter in several member states.

Of the 27 EU nations, 16 -- Britain, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden -- already publish their farming aid details in full or in part.

The next step in putting a cap on the CAP.

The Commission has suggested progressive reductions until the total annual subsidy to an individual enterprise does not exceed a fixed figure, expected to be around 100,000 euros.

However EU governments on Monday rejected a proposal to sharply reduce the biggest agricultural subsidies, a measure that would have hit British and German farmers in particular.

At present almost half of the farming beneficiaries of the CAP receive less than 500 euros per year.

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