COUPLED SUPPORT UNDER THE FIRST PILLAR OF THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY – SCOPE OF THE MEMBER STATES’ DECISIVENESS AND MANNER OF IMPLEMENTATION AT NATIONAL LEVEL

The article presents the range of decisions made by the member-states of the European Union about the optional support given to production. Since 2015 it has been an element of the first pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy. The article provides an overview of the production support instruments implemented in Poland (indicating the essence of changes introduced in 2017). It also compares trends and the amount of support provided as part of this instrument in individual EU member-states. The research showed that the EU member-states showed big interest in the support offered to production. It was manifested both by the multitude of payments made and the considerable use of the maximum financing limit.