Prince Albert, the monarch of Monaco, is not what you would call a farmer in need. But like Queen Elizabeth of Britain, he is among the elite farmers who benefit from billions of dollars in European agricultural subsidies.
The royalty of Monaco, a small principality on the Mediterranean Sea, received more than 300,000 dollars last year in subsidies from the European Union to support cereal production on his land in northern France.
Others get far higher subsidies. But the prince was on a list of 58 French farmers benefiting from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) released by the World Economy Group (GEM, after its French name), a research centre at the Institute for Political Studies in Paris.