European Union agriculture ministers have agreed radical reforms to the controversial system of paying subsidies to farmers. They promise to slash the monstrous bill of 43bn euro ($50) that EU countries’ taxpayers have to foot in order to subsidise ehem…French… ehem… farmers.
EU farm commissioner Franz Fischler, who first proposed the reforms, said the accord marked “the start of a new era” and would fundamentally change the 45-year old Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Is this encouraging? We do not think so. And neither does the BBC. Shock, horror. Cast your eye over the deal and note it has as many (loop)holes as Swiss cheese (which, by the way, is produced without EU subsidies). I would like to draw your attention to the point 3.
- Abolish most of the subsidies that reward farmers according to how much food they grow.
- Farmers will receive a single payment, rather than grading the amount of money in line with the amount of food produced.
- Individual countries will be able to stick to the old system if there is a risk that the new system would lead to the land being abandoned.
- The prices at which the EU intervenes to support farmers are to be cut in key sectors, including milk powder and butter
- Countries like the UK, which want to press ahead with more radical reform, are allowed to do so.
- Direct payment for bigger farms will be cut to finance the new rural development policy, promoting the environment and animal welfare.
So the end of EUcrats meddling in agriculture in nowhere in sight. The ‘reform’ is merely a cosmetic rejuggling of CAP’s inefficiencies and vast bureaucracy induced by the wide-spread criticism of the policy for distorting global trade and hurting poor countries. The subsidies have been the key sticking point in agreeing the next round of global trade talks directly opposing the EU child-like and visionary drive for ‘global influence’ as a counterpart to the US.
Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.
It’s a typical EU compromise which gives and takes a little from everyone and creates terrible difficulties for those who have to implement it.
Guess who said that? Gerd Sonnleitner, head of Germany’s farmers union. He got that right but I doubt he will see the light on the other side of the EU fence.
Maybe we’re a little slow on the uptake down here in the Antipodes, but what possible benefit can there possibly be in surrendering your country’s sovereignty to the morons in Brussels.
Every single consequence of joining the EU that I can think of is disastrous except that in theory it should free up trade. Obviously this doen’t apply when the current discussion is about how much protection French farmers should enjoy at the expense of the rest of the Union.
Why on earth should a country like the UK agree to join up with a bunch of clapped out socialist basket cases when they have already done some of the hard yards to free up their economy?
I appreciate that I’m preaching to the converted but surely there must be some (any?) cogent arguments on the other side of the fence.
Er…travelling around Europe without having to chance currency…?
EU membership does have loads of benefits not lease the free movement of goods, services and people which was not the case for the UK until ’73. If you limit your discussion to the nutty elements like the CAP, the social charter and the new constitution it will sound like a seriously bad idea.
The problem for the UK is that most folks here, and in many of the smaller EU countries, see the EU primarily as a free trade association plus a few handy elements that all can agree upon whereas that is not the case at all in France and Germany. These two are petrified that if left to their own devices they’ll sooner or later go to war again and therefore desperately want to turn the EU into a political association i.e. an United States of Europe.
EU membership does have loads of benefits not lease the free movement of goods, services and people which was not the case for the UK until ’73.
I believe that was called EEC… Come again, what are the benefits of EU membership?
Lorenzo,
It is for that reason that a great many people in this country looked favourably upon the European Free Trade Association. That is what they were led to believe we were signing up to.
I just bought a return air ticket from London to Montpellier. It cost me 54.75 pounds. (Just out of interest, 26.77 of that was taxes of various kinds). This is a consequence of deregulation of the aviation market in the EU, and there is no way that the individual EU countries could have managed it on their own. At least certainly not as quickly. This was one of the reforms of the Single European Act, that came into force in 1993 (but which took longer to really have an impact, because many of the reforms were given “transition periods”). Those aspects of the EU which make it easier to do cross border business and which allow more cross border competition – in short those that deregulate – are generally positive. (If the EU did not exist, mpst of these benefits would have gradually come into being through one off bilateral treaties, as is now happening with Switzerland. However, it would have taken a lot longer).
The trouble is that with this we got certain areas of the economy that were kept off limits from competition of any kind (and instead were heavily subsidised – the key example being of course agriculture) and we got an overly bureacratic and completely undemocratic bureacracy that wishes to massively expand its size and regulate everything in sight to run it all, being controlled by an unholy alliance of polically correct leftists and French bureacrats.
I don’t believe there should be no European institutions at all. However, these should be established with narrow jurisdictions as they are needed. What is not needed is a single, undemocratic, inefficient and corrupt French style bureacracy to run them all, and that seems to be what we have..
Apparently it’s something to do with not being “left behind”. All the other kids are going to a party, on a boat, and there’ll be dead good presents for everyone, and no I don’t know who’s steering, or where its going, or how long we’ll be out, but Johnny says the man says….
Lorenzo and David Carr
I’d be all in favour of leaving the EU and joining the real
European Free Trade Area. They have a free-trade agreement with the EU and seemingly very little of the bullshit.
They should be happy to have us back, since we were a founding member in 1960… Under the EEA Agreement, EFTA Members adopt the acquis communautaire, which is pretty vicious in parts. But there are definitely benefits.
No commitment to ever closer union, for a start.
Ok Gabriel I’ll grant you that I liked the EU a lot more when it was called the EEC but the point is, as Michael Jennings points out, us europeans would have taken a lot longer to liberalise our markets without this much maligned institution. That is if we would manage at all.
As to EFTA that’s Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Lovely countries all of them but not exactly huge/important markets. They do have a Free-trade agreement but legislation wise it is all one way with the EFTA countries having to adopt the entire legislative BS from Brussels without having any say in creating the legislation. I really don’t think that’s such a good deal!
Switzerland are a member of EFTA but not the EEA, which means they have not adopted the acquis communautaire. Instead, they are adopting the bits of the single market they like via bilateral treaties with the EU. Whether a similar option would be available to larger countries that wanted to withdraw from or stay out of the EU remains to be seen, although one suspects it would be in the long term. The question I suppose is how long would be the “short term” during which the EU would stay miffed.