UAE-controlled Companies Received €71m in EU Agricultural Subsidies for Farms in Romania, Spain and Italy (2019-2024)

Subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected more than €71m in EU subsidies over six years for farmland in Romania, Italy and Spain, a cross-border investigation has found. The investigation reviewed data for thousands of CAP beneficiaries between 2019 and 2024 and traced 110 European subsidy payments to a network of companies and subsidiaries controlled by the UAE’s Al Nahyan family and ADQ.

The largest payments flowed through Agricost, which owns the EU’s single largest farm measuring 57,000 hectares.

5m in direct payments. The company was bought by the Al Nahyans in 2018 for an estimated €230m through Al Dahra. Al Dahra was founded by Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

ADQ bought 50% of Al Dahra in 2020. Since 2012 Al Dahra has acquired multiple farm companies in Spain responsible for more than 8,000 hectares of land.

Al Dahra’s Spanish companies received more than €5m in CAP subsidies between 2015 and 2024. In 2022 ADQ bought Unifrutti, a fresh fruit producer with an estimated worth of $830m. Unifrutti’s Italian farms received at least €186,000 in CAP subsidies in the three years after the 2022 sale.

The Al Nahyan family has an estimated wealth of more than $320bn. The UAE controls about 960,000 hectares of farmland worldwide. 5tn. The UAE imports up to 90% of its food.

CAP subsidies make up a third of the EU’s entire budget and pay out about €54bn each year to farmers and rural areas. Just 17 billionaires received more than €3bn in CAP payments between 2018 and 2021. 5% of the EU’s top landowners who capture 16% of the entire CAP budget.

The European Commission published a proposal for the next round of CAP payments for 2028 to 2034 in July 2025. The proposal would cap land-based payments to €100,000 per farmer each year. A European Commission spokesperson said income support through CAP payments should be better targeted including by reducing and capping payments for the bigger farms.

Faustine Bas-Defossez said the CAP is not helping EU farmers; it continues to enrich the wealthiest landowners and is fuelling autocratic regimes.

“Ninety-nine percent of real European farmers receive less than €100,000 in subsidies and that the money was never meant for fossil fuel dynasties." — Thomas Waitz ADQ was chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan between 2023 and January 2026. Since January 2026 ADQ has become part of Abu Dhabi’s newest sovereign wealth fund L’imad Holding chaired by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Guardian reported these details from the DeSmog investigation. The findings arrive as the EU debates reforms to a system in which area-based payments have concentrated benefits among the largest operators. The Al Nahyans’ European holdings form one element of a broader push that has seen the UAE secure farmland across continents to supply its domestic needs.”