The EU executive decided to move as a 30 April deadline for making public details of the beneficiaries of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding, together with full details of amounts received, fast approaches.
The Commission said it was "surprised and disappointed" by suggestions that Germany may not publish the information before the deadline.
An EU regulation adopted last March – and supported by Germany - requires all member states to make publicly available, by this month's deadline, websites that allow people to search for CAP beneficiaries by name, municipality or amount received (see 'Background').
Members of the public must also be able to extract the information as a single set of data.
Germany is the only country not to have yet done so. Citing data protection concerns, German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner on Wednesday recommended "temporarily suspending" publication of the information.
Many German Länder reacted quickly to her remarks, with Hessen, Bavaria and Schleswig-Holstein among those announcing decisions not to publish the data, German agriculture news site 'top agrar' reported.
German farmers are reportedly concerned about making public details of the €5.4 billion they receive annually from the EU, arguing that doing so would contravene the country’s data protection laws.
"If they do suspend publication, we will react accordingly," warned EU Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. "This could mean starting infringement proceedings against Germany."
The Commission said it cannot agree to the suspension because data protection issues had already been taken into account in developing the legislation, which received the backing of all member states.
"We are very surprised. Germany voted in favour of this proposal and the legal situation is clear. Germany is obliged to implement this legislation," Fischer Boel added.
Under EU rules, only the European Court of Justice can declare a regulation invalid.
Berlin has already complied with a separate requirement, in force since September 2008, to publish recipients of EU rural development funding.
Meanwhile, EU agriculture ministers meeting in Luxembourg will today hold discussions on the simplification of the CAP.
