Accelerated farmland bird population declines in European countries after their recent EU accession

Agricultural intensification is a major driver of global biodiversity loss. In Europe, intensification progressed over the 20th century and was accelerated by instruments of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries standing outside the EU until the beginning of the 21st century employed less intensive farming and are considered one of the continent's farmland biodiversity strongholds. Their recent EU accession might be either viewed as a threat to farmland biodiversity due to the availability of funds to increase agricultural production or as an opportunity to implement conservation measures aimed to preserve biodiversity. Here we assessed these possibilities using long-term monitoring data on farmland bird populations in seven CEE countries. We tested whether mean relative abundance and population trends changed after countries' EU accession, and whether such changes also occurred in agricultural management and conservation measures. Both agricultural intensity and spending for agri-environmental and climatic schemes increased when the CEE countries joined the EU. At the same time, farmland bird populations started to decline and their relative abundance was lower after than before EU accession. In addition, increases in fertilizer application were negatively associated with annual changes in relative farmland bird population sizes, indicating a negative impact of intensive agriculture. Taken together, these results indicate that despite the great power of the EU's environmental legislation to improve the population status of species at risk, this does not apply to farmland birds. In their case, the adverse impacts of agricultural intensification most likely overrode the possible benefits of conservation measures. To secure this region as one of the continent's farmland biodiversity strongholds, policy and management actions are urgently needed.