Tag Archives: CAP

A distinct lack of transparency

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Following the progress made on Common Agricultural Policy reform the other day (and it was progress, even if not as much as many would have liked), there remains much confusion. As CAP Health Check asks, who voted for what?

Common Agricultural Policy budgetThe same (invaluable) blog has all kinds of details on the fall-out from the deal – a deal in which, once again, France appears to have acted the petulant child and, from pure selfishness, scuppered reforms that the EU sorely needs. Because it wouldn’t be fair for France to get any less than 20% of the single largest chunk of the EU budget, would it?

And so, once again, a much-needed serious overhaul of one of the fundamental aspects of the modern EU is put off for a few more years. Instead we get yet another compromise that pleases no one. Just as with the last attempt to reform the CAP back in 2003. Just as with the Constitution. Just as with the Treaty of Nice.

Am I a cynic to think that the reason the big decisions keep being put off by a few years every time (the next attempt to reform the CAP will come in 2013) is that our dear politicians are aware of their short terms of office, and are hoping that come the next round of negotiations it’ll be somebody else’s problem?

Romania: Truly European

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Ah… The 2007 accession states of Bulgaria and Romania… What to make of them? At the time I was both optimistic and pessimistic all at once. A year and a half on…?

After Bulgaria being told off last month (for, y’know, little things like being economically backward, corrupt, and ignoring human rights and the rule of law) now EU agricultural funds have been suspended to Romania due to dodgy management.

Oh dear… Doesn’t look like letting them in was such a good idea now, does it?

The thing is, though, unlike Bulgaria’s blatant unsuitability for EU membership, I reckon this simply shows how much Romania’s getting into the spirit of things. The Commission has suspended payments of just 28.3 million euros to Romania – that’s three times less than France was fined back in 2006 for dodgy use of CAP funds. Mismanagement of EU agricultural payments is a long and noble tradition – by following the examples of France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland, Romania is merely underlining its commitment to European values.

Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

The WHO on the CAP

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Bad news for Brussels, as the World Health Organisation slams the Common Agricultural Policy:

The cardiovascular disease burden attributable to CAP appears substantial. Furthermore, these calculations were conservative estimates, and the true mortality burden may be higher.

More here:

Direct subsidies to farmers have led to massive overproduction of milk and beef in Europe, with the excess food then disposed of “principally as fats hidden in processed foods,”…

Looking at the 15 EU states before the 2004 round of enlargement, the annual “mortality contribution attributable to CAP was approximately 9,800 additional CHD deaths and 3,000 additional stroke deaths within the EU,” the study says, with France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK seeing the highest numbers of excess deaths.

The eurosceptics are going to have a field day with this one – and who can blame them? Is there anyone bar the French and the occasional farmer who thinks the CAP is a good thing?

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Deal ‘will slash EU farm subsidies’

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Potentially promising stuff for those of us who dislike the CAP – though worrying news for Europe’s beleaguered farmers:

Europe’s farmers will be “major losers” from a new world trade deal, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has admitted.

He told the start of marathon make-or-break talks in Geneva that Brussels was offering “groundbreaking” agricultural reforms which would see subsidies to the European farming sector slashed by £80 billion and average agriculture trade tariffs cut by more than half.

In return, he warned negotiators representing more than 150 countries, the EU wanted to see real concessions from the rest of the world towards opening up global trade to the benefit of everyone.

This is the British vision of what the EU should be all about personified – and something that France has always fought against tooth and nail.

So, is it a coincidence that Mandelson is putting this forward a few weeks into the French EU presidency – a French EU presidency that kicked off with President Sarkozy publicly attacking Mandelson?

Meh – who cares about petty feuds? The real question is will President Bush step up to the challenge and revive his offer from 2005 to slash US farm subsides? If he does, he could just end his presidency with helping seal the biggest contribution to the global fight against poverty and starvation the world has ever seen. Hell… Only Nixon could go to China, right?

The botox treaty and the end of the EU

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Botox

A fun little article on Europe in 2057, combined with Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s reiteration of the UK government’s position on a referendum over the new EU treaty, has got me pondering once again. (Warning – it’ll be a long one…)

It all starts from the fact that – and as I argued earlier this month – the new EU treaty simply doesn’t do what it needs to.

In setting up an EU president (with a maximum term of just five years) and marginally streamlining (via a – relatively – minor expansion of qualified majority voting) the process by which the EU can bring new laws and regulations into effect (because, obviously, we haven’t got enough already), it provides mere cosmetic fixes for deep structural issues while altogether ignoring some of the most vital underlying problems.

After all, where’s the vitally-needed rethink on the Common Agricultural Policy, the single most indefensible aspect of the EU’s existence? Where’s the fresh take on the Common Fisheries Policy? Where’s the expansion of democratic accountability, the significant increase in the power of the European Parliament, the long-promised massive reduction in the power of the Commission? Hell, where’s the logical and fair redistribution of political power and EU subsidies across the full 27 member states which was, after all, the primary reason for a new EU treaty in the first place?

It is, in other words, the international treaty equivalent of whacking some lipstick on the elephant man, the proverbial polishing of a turd.
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