I’ve been following the slagging match debate between Britain and France regarding the British Rebate, the EU budget and reform of the CAP over the last few weeks with increasing despair.
For once, I actually agree with Blair et al. that the EU budget is taking the piss with its 46% spent on farmers, when they represent a tiny part of the overall economy of Europe. The rebate, introduced to ensure Britain paid a fairer overall contribution, should be up for debate, but only in the wider context of EU budgetary reform. It’s good to see that the UK will push for a deal during it’s chairmanship in the next six months.
All that said though, it still strikes me as madness that the issue can’t be dealt with more sensibly. The EU is now larger than its ever been before, and responsible for a massive budget. Surely there’s an argument for “devolving” responsibility for how EU budget is spent down to countries/regions themselves, rather than from the centre.
As it is, bureaucrats are allocating money based on various criteria set according to political expediency. Right now, with France of course in the driving seat, the 46% of money spent on farmers means that less is spent on building businesses, helping truly deprived areas, and helping grow the economies of the newly joined countries from the former Soviet Union.
I do believe that the EU provides many valuable functions, not least in fostering peace and well being amongst its population, but also improving economic growth through the common market and single currency. In a word, I consider myself very “Pro European”, and would probably vote to support British entry to the Single currency and vote to accept the proposed constitution (although not without some concerns on both). Yet the inability to ensure that the way these colossal amounts of money is spent matches the current needs of the wider populations is doing massive amounts to undermine the fragile support it has in many countries, not least the UK.
So if France were able to say “let us subsidise our farmers”, they should be allowed to with their “share” of the EU money allocated to them, whilst the rest of Europe focus on other areas more in need of funding, not least helping areas suffering job losses as a result of shifting markets, globalisation and global economics find new - innovative and forward looking - ways of making a living.
All this doesn’t mean I think we should ditch subsidies to farmers, or give up on managing the countryside in better, more sustainable ways, but as the Independent reports today, millions is going to otherwise very wealthy farmers, demonstrating the system is badly broken as it is, and is in urgent need of really quite substantial reform.
Allocating money from the EU budget with more concern towards localised priorities - political or otherwise - would go a long way to helping the countries in the EU who see that our future prosperity lies not in subsidising farmers out of all proportion to their contribution, but in building strong businesses across a range of industries. It would also go a long way to helping relieve much of the unfairness such subsidies cause third world farmers struggling to see their produce reaching other markets.
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June 30th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Under a scheme similar to the one you are proposing how would the money be divied up between countries and regions? eg, how much of the budget should France get?
June 30th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
Good question, Spencer. I suppose the budget would be carved out by whatever was felt appropriate by the elected (or not) representatives in Brussels who decide how money is allocated right now. Bottom line is, the rich countries, the UK and France included, are already large net contributors (remember too that Holland is the largest contributor per capita).
I take the view that simplest is often best, so I’d think something that reflected both need for money, but with some recognition of size of the contribution and population affected. Political decisions all of them. The end result though should be that if France wants to direct whatever its share of money is at farming subsidisation, it should be able to do so, leaving others to fund more appropriate schemes.