The Bad Boy of Hong Kong Is French

The French refusal to agree a cut in European subsidies for agriculture within the common agricultural policy (CAP) will also be at the core of EU talks this week on a long-term budget.

Despite several 'reforms' of CAP, French farmers continue to receive about a fifth of more than 52 billion dollars in subsidies the EU pays out every year. These subsidies add up to about 40 percent of the EU budget.

Trade ministers aim to reach agreement in Hong Kong on liberalisation of international trade in agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services. But the success of the conference depends on the readiness of the richest countries, especially EU members and the United States, to reduce subsidies to their farmers, and to open their markets for agricultural products and services from developing countries.

{josquote}Despite pressure from other European countries, especially Britain, French leaders have repeated in recent days that they will not accept either a reduction in European subsidies for French farmers, or drastic reduction of tariffs on agricultural products from abroad{/josquote}.

"CAP is a strategic European policy, and its importance goes beyond the agricultural domain," French minister for agriculture Dominique Bussereau wrote in an editorial comment in the French financial newspaper Les Echos last week.

"Some CAP critics pretend that the French defence of it is a purely electoral scheme, and that the aid for farmers is unfair and iniquitous. This opinion is wrong," he said. "France will be attentive that...the conference's final result be completely compatible with CAP."

Bussereau said at a press conference that France will also shun concessions proposed by European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Mandelson has proposed a 70 percent cut in European subsidies and the halving of the present European tariffs on import of agricultural goods from 22.8 to 12.2 percent.

French leaders have been trying meanwhile to divert attention to concessions not offered by others. At the 23rd French-African summit in Bamako in Mali Dec. 3 and 4, French President Jacques Chirac "solemnly" urged the U.S. government "to eliminate all its subsidies to the U.S. cotton producers, as the European Union has vowed to do."

French commentators are backing their leaders with arguments to oppose any reform of agricultural markets.

"The WTO proposals are the most counterproductive in the agricultural domain," Gérard Le Puill, trade expert with the leftist newspaper L'Humanité told IPS. "A sustainable agricultural policy must combine purely economic with agricultural and ecological criteria. But the WTO only takes into consideration the economic viewpoint and the wrong idea that competition is the philosopher's stone for welfare."

The anti-CAP proposals before the WTO will lead to deforestation, monocultures, and abuses in irrigation and of chemicals and pesticides, he said.

A similar argument was developed by Le Monde economics expert Éric Le Boucher. After describing the French defence of subsidies for farmers as "tense", Le Boucher wrote that agricultural protectionism is justifiable. "Agriculture should not lead to transforming the landscape into wasteland, alimentary security must be a political priority, and trash-food multinationals will destabilise the poorest countries' agriculture."

But some experts have been critical of the government position. Jean-Gabriel Fredet, a leading commentator at the weekly newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur, says France's stubborn agricultural policy based on mass production and a phobia of free markets "represents the culprit our critics (at the WTO negotiations) have dreamed of."

France, he wrote, is fighting "its last fight" in defending European subsidies for its farmers.

Immediately after the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong, subsidies will be on the agenda again at the European heads of state and government meeting in Brussels Dec. 15.

The British government, which holds the rotating EU presidency until Dec. 31 has recommended cuts of 24 billion euros (28 billion dollars) from the spending level proposed by previous EU president Luxembourg.

British officials say CAP subsidies drain almost half of European resources, and should be drastically reduced.

Britain's ambassador to Poland Charles Crawford described the subsidies in a leaked internal e-mail as "the most stupid, immoral state-subsidised policy in human history, give or take communism." (END/IPS/EU/WD/WT/JG/SS/05)

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency

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