European Union | EU Unveils Plan To Cut Agricultural Spending | The EU’s go...
European Union
EU Unveils Plan To Cut Agricultural Spending
The EU’s governing body, the European Commission, faced with an unpalatable increase in its spending on agricultural subsidies after the EU’s proposed addition of 10 new member states, unveiled a scheme to cut farm subsidies today (July 10).
The EU agriculture budget, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), currently eats up almost half the group’s $97 billion budget, but reform is opposed by the member states that benefit most from subsidies, such as France and Ireland and supported by Germany and Britain, the biggest contributors to EU funds.
The new plan would give farmers a single payment from CAP funds based on past funding, regardless of whether they continue production on the same scale and no farm would get more than 300,000 euros. Payments would be linked to environmental, animal welfare and food safety standards and much of the money saved on subsidies would be earmarked for rural development. The proposal would strip less than $200 million from the CAP's $39.8 billion annual spending limit, which is fixed until 2006, but will allow a leaner CAP after enlargement.
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta, top ten candidates for EU membership are more heavily agrarian nations than the current 15 EU members. The European Parliament estimates their addition would add about $4.5 billion to the CAP under the current system.