Green Rates

   Green rates are accounting currencies used in assessing payments to farmers within the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Under CAP, farmers are paid in agricultural units of account, and green rates were devised to convert these units of account payments into national currencies. They can only be revised by governments, which makes them far more stable than market rates and the number of green rates was sharply reduced by the introduction of the euro in 1999. Green rates only exist for those countries that remain outside the single currency. ► See also CAP, European Union, Euro.