Built a compromise on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, the Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler said in recent days launched a campaign of appeal in defense of the CAP. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal hosted a talk "against the myths about European agricultural policy."
First myth to be dismantled: the politics of USA is better than that of the EU. Fischler said that in fact these policies are much more convergent than many people would have you believe. The difference is that while the U.S. with the 2002 Farm Bill have made a "U-turn" from the reforms of the Clinton administration and toward a more and more trade-distorting, public intervention, the EU has with recent reforms "undertaken a completely different way." To dispel the myth
second, which ones for which the reform of the CAP is "too little, too late," Fischler points out that since 1992 the CAP has been subject to three reforms whose cumulative effect is to have decreased by 70% forms distorting support. Not to mention reforms next venture in the sugar, cotton, oil and tobacco.
against the third and most shameful accusation, that damage to poor countries whose economy is based on agriculture - authoritatively endorsed by Jacques Chirac in February at the Summit of African heads of state, but then (when the war in Iraq was over and the votes were no longer at the UN ..) take the field for the proposal annacqure Fischler - Commissioner argues that the EU is by far the largest importer of agricultural products from developing countries. "
The road to the Cancun WTO Ministerial Conference will be hard and Fischler's meeting Sunday with the trade representative Robert Zoellick and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, aimed to rally round to convergences "interventionist" indicated on the WSJ by the Commissioner. But the EU sharpens his weapons and prepared for confrontation. With the U.S., that if the support to farmers may seek agreements with the EU on export subsidies - which produce a real effect of dumping to the detriment of developing countries - and access to markets, have a negotiating position far more drastic : elimination of the first, and cut average tariffs by 15% and setting a ceiling of 25% (which wipes out rates-wall as that of the EU Sugar 100%) for the second. With developing countries: as pointed out by Fischler, the EU is an important outlet for their products, but for this reason the existing tariff barriers are a serious damage to those economies, which can only partially exploit the potential of one of the richest markets. Without regard to the dumping of surplus production ipersussidiate European international markets. And remember how the same Fischler, key sectors such as sugar, cotton, tobacco were not affected by the reform. Brussels promises to follow soon, with yet another "great reform". But the question is whether the three reforms in ten years is really a sign of a continuing desire for reform or not but many missed opportunities. As a missed opportunity is likely to be Cancun.
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