An Italian bank in Milan, a French chicken giant and an Irish producer of Weight Watchers meals and Yorkshire pudding, were the largest beneficiaries of EU farm subsidies, according to previously undisclosed data for 2008.

The statistics, for subsidies in 2008, show that an elite class of beneficiaries got more than 700 payments of at least 1 million euros ($1.33million). The largest payment, 140 million euros, went to the Italian sugar company Italia Zuccheri. An Italian bank, ICBPI, got more than 180 millioneuros in five payments.

The list shows that an Irish agribusiness called Greencore, which produces Weight Watchers meals in the United States and Europe, received more than 83 million euros in 2008, the fourth-largest subsidy. The French chicken giant Doux earned almost 63 million euros.

Under pressure from the 27-nation European Union, 26 countries published the information. Farmsubsidy.org, a nonprofit group that campaigns for transparency in the reporting of subsidies, compiled a list of the top recipients in 18 of those countries. The group said it could not include data from nine countries for technical reasons. Germany has not disclosed recipients.

The list reflects the way huge agribusinesses in the European Union receive the biggest slices from a farm subsidy pie that is worth more than 50 billion euros a year across all member nations.

“There is no argument for these larger payments,” said Harald von Witzke, a professor of international agricultural trade and economic development at Humboldt University of Berlin. “If they are designed to be partof social policy, there is no justification. If they are meant to compensate farmers for having higher environmental standards in the E.U., then they are being paid too much.”

With data from the New York Times.