I'm sorry if I appeared insensitive in speaking of a "small percentage". My point was simply to show that the gains from sweeping free trade reform were far slighter -- for those the most in need -- than some rhetoric on the subject implies. Your own comment at the top of the thread, to which I was replying, was extremely sweeping and simplistic, and most certainly implied that the total dismantling of the CAP would solve a great many of Africa's problems. May I ask you if you really believe that liberalization is the way to bring about progress for the poor in Africa and other continents? You really think free trade is the answer?

On the World Bank report: I don't want to be tedious, but there are a couple of things I'd like to rectify or nuance in what you say.

• The "32 million" you quote are in all developing countries, not just Sub-Saharan Africa. Quote: "The majority of the poor by 2015 are projected to be in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the reduction [in poverty] would be 6 percent".

• The "Doha scenario 1" implies elimination of agricultural export subsidies plus (for the CAP) a reduction of 18% in domestic farm and industry aid (already programmed) plus "the applied global average tariff on agricultural products is cut by roughly one-third, with larger cuts in developing economies, smaller in developing economies, and zero in least developed countries". In other words, one-third is an average, but the EU would be required to lower its tariffs by considerably more.

• The table on p12 speaks of all developing countries, not just the poorest. Your comment above spoke of Africa. There is a middling rank of emerging agricultural exporting countries that stands to gain from liberalization, as I pointed out above.

• "Agriculture is where cuts are needed most" same comment. What was most important was where the report dealt with the poorest, not with a lumped-in "developing countries" category.

My main point, anyway, was to say that even the World Bank was not very affirmative about alleviating African poverty even in the most favourable to free trade of its scenarios.

I then have a job understanding what the rest of your remarks have to do with anything I said. If the remark

There seems to be an attitude here that CAP reform is some kind of right-wing plot by so-called "Anglo-Saxon" countries.

is meant to apply to me, I'm at a loss. People here have repeatedly said (and I'm among them) that we want to see CAP reform. I want to see phasing out of export subsidies and of subsidies to the agri-food industry, and capping of direct farm subsidies with redistribution in favour of small farms. I'm pretty sure most people who comment here would agree.

As for "there seems to be an attitude", permit me to say that, if there seems to be an attitude anywhere, it's in the hectoring tone of your comments. As for "Anglo-Saxon", it's a term I avoid because it's inexact, but trying to make out it's as pejorative as "Frog" seems to me to be stretching it more than a bit.