EU Agricultural Subsidies [CAP] Under Fire

In view of the WTO Doha round of global trade talks and the significant role of European Union (EU) agricultural subsidies [CAP] in those talks, especially the large and controversial subsidies to France, the question must be asked:

Who actually gets the greatly disputed EU farm subsidies which make up ca. 40% of the EU budget?

A November 7, 2005 press release from the NGO Oxfam reports that agricultural subsidies in the European Union show tremendous inequalities of distribution (as already shown for the UK previously, see here and here) . The more land that is owned, the more subsidies the owner is entitled to obtain. The result is that the rich, the biggest farms and large multinational corporations who own large tracts of farmland are the biggest recipients of EU agricultural subsidies. We excerpt the 7 November 2005 Oxfam press release below which was titled "Lid comes off French farm subsidies":

"Europe must face up to the need to reform its Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] following new revelations of inequality from another of its member states this week, said international agency Oxfam today.

French newspaper La Tribune has published figures that show the biggest French farming businesses swallow up the vast majority of its EU agricultural subsidies....

The revelations come as EU Foreign Ministers meet today (Nov 7) in Brussels to discuss the EU budget and trade negotiators from the EU, US, India and Brazil meet in London to try to unblock WTO negotiations.

“CAP reform will be on top of the agenda in Brussels....,” said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign.

France is leading an aggressive defense of the CAP at the WTO. France gets around 9.4 billion Euros from the 44 billion Euro CAP budget....

“The CAP is a gravy train for Europe’s biggest, richest farmers,” she said....“

Oxfam has been instrumental in helping to expose the huge inequalities in farm spending that exist in the UK, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Slovakia and now France....

Crossposted to LawPundit.
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