It was based on the establishment of production-related direct aid payments and gave a prominent role to agri-environmental instruments to support farmers’ income. In June 2003, the EU decided to replace, from 2006 onward, most of the direct aid with a single farm payment scheme that is not linked to production. Beneficiaries will be obliged to accomplish certain environmental and food safety requirements, being those almost identical for irrigation and rain-fed farms. The EU Commission recognized, within the launching of the ‘CAP’S Health Check’, that a new CAP should achieve climate change and water management objectives by means of cross compliance. These authors show that the price support delivered to cotton producers in the region is largely responsible for the large benefit of water in the region.