One of the, thus far, little mentioned innovations in the Reform Treaty is the potential effect on CAP reform. The treaty extends the European Parliament's legislative co-decision powers to the field of agricultural legislation. In the EU budgetary procedure too, all EU expenditure will be subject to the approval of both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament. At the moment agriculture is the exclusive preserve of the Council of Ministers. As I pointed out in my article on the Compass website, opening up the CAP and agricultural legislation to the Parliament, in which MEPs divide along ideological rather than national lines, will increase the levels of scrutiny, democratic accountability and should drive reform in these areas.

Another measure to increase transparency in agriculture spending is the decision last week by EU Agriculture Ministers to publish a comprehensive list of all CAP recipients, which was detailed on the Financial Times blog. The Commission and Member States will now draw up guidelines on how much information countries will have to provide - for example, the UK produces a very detailed list including the precise amount the Queen receives in farming subsidy (£769,000 for her Sandringham farm in 2003/4), but there is currently nothing to stop others from merely publishing generic information ie "a grain farmer in Picardy".

Small steps perhaps, but making the ways in which the EU spends its budget more visible and detailing how the money is spent is, nonetheless, a significant step towards increasing transparency and parliamentary scrutiny.