Britain, Sweden and others had called for deep cuts to the common agricultural policy (CAP) budget after 2013, but a majority of EU governments led by France want farm spending to remain at least stable after the policy is reformed in 2014.

Under the proposals, farm spending will total 371.7 bn euros between 2014 and 2020, with a further 15.2 bn for new programmes, giving an average annual budget of about 55 bn euros.

That would ensure that the CAP budget continues to consume about 40 pc of the bloc's total spending, worth some 140 bn euros a year.

"This is a good result for the future CAP in the current economic climate. It is a budget will allow us to carry out a substantial reform of the CAP," EU farm commissioner Dacian Ciolos said in a statement.

The budget proposals must now be approved unanimously by EU governments -- a process that is expected to take at least 18 months.

With its plans for the EU's next long-term budget finalised, the Commission will now begin drafting legislative proposals for the reform of the CAP from 2014, due to be published in October.

The budget proposals revealed several details about the Commission's CAP reform plans, including its intention to allocate direct subsidies more equally between farmers in the EU's older and newer member states.

Farmers in the Netherlands currently receive about 470 euros per hectare in direct aid, compared to less than a hundred euros in Latvia.

In future, farmers in all countries will receive at least 90 pc of the EU average -- currently about 270 euros per hectare -- although the requirement will be gradually phased in and only partially implemented by 2020, the proposal said.

Thirty percent of farmers' direct payments will be made conditional on them meeting "a range of environmentally sound practices" in areas such as climate change and biodiversity protection, according to the budget plan.

The Commission will propose that direct subsidies are only paid to "active farmers," though it has yet to define the concept in detail.

An upper limit will also be proposed on CAP subsidy payments to individual farms, though the level of the limit is not yet specified.

With 75 pc of CAP subsidies going to only 17.5 pc of farmers in Europe, according to Commission figures for 2008, limiting the largest payouts is seen as a way of freeing up funds for new priorities.

Among the new CAP budget lines proposed is up to 500m euros per year to address unexpected crises such as the recent E.coli outbreak, when the EU approved 210m euros in aid for vegetable farmers whose sales were hit by crisis.

In addition, a "globalisation fund" of up to 2.5bn euros over seven years will be created to help farmers deal with new challenges including price volatility and future trade agreements that may increase agricultural imports to the EU.