French farmers dig in against subsidy reform

French farmers received €9.4bn ($11bn, £6.3bn) of CAP handouts last year, more than a fifth of all European agriculture spending, which in turn accounts for 40 per cent of the entire EU budget.

And the UK gets EUR3.9bn, with a third of the arable land of France. And the agricultural budget is such a big part of the EU budget because some countries care so much about their sovereignty that they don't want a European budget for anything else (guess who?)

The French position - for now formally adopted in the EU negotiation stance - threatens to undermine a global trade deal when the World Trade Organisation meets in Hong Kong next week.

So the French are not isolated if it's a EU wide position.

Farming reform has also become a sticking point on the EU's 2007-2013 budget talks. The UK has said it will only give up its contested EU budget rebate in return for cuts in agricultural subsidies, which Paris refuses.

Blair has already given up on this. Why is the FT still arguing about this today?

So how do French farmers, who make up only 3.5 per cent of its population, have such a powerful influence over their political leaders that they can threaten to sabotage two of the world's most important multilateral negotiations?

Sabotage? That's a pretty harsh and inflammatory word, don't you think? And yet that's the permanent background to these negotiations.

It's dishonest.

Economists say France has the most to lose from EU farming reform, as it is the region's biggest agricultural exporter and many of its rural areas have little alternative to farming. It also relies on the CAP to reduce its budget deficit.

Again, unsubstnatiated facts. The CAP regime on sugar was reformed recently (to cut subsidies massively), with France in favor. Losers were expected to be Greece and Poland.

As to the CAP vs budget defict argument, this is such a blatant spin. France is a net contributor to the EU budget!!

More than half of France's CAP handouts go to the biggest 10 per cent of its farmers, while the smallest 76 per cent get only 20 per cent of payments.

This undermines France's argument that the CAP protects small farmers and defends the social and cultural balance of the countryside.

France has never been at the forefortn of that argument (sadly) - and it is the UK and Germany that refused a French proposal to cap payments per farm back in 2002. Lies, lies, lies again.

James Rollo, professor of European economic integration at Sussex University, says French consumers lose out by paying inflated prices on goods protected by tariffs of up to 200 per cent.

But he says "French consumers don't seem to mind being ripped off by their farmers"

Maybe they don't feel ripped off? Paying for quality and availability, what a strange concept.

The danger is that politicians will adopt protectionist rhetoric to increase their populist appeal to voters, making France an even more difficult negotiating partner for the foreseeable future

Who's a difficult partner in Europe? Who's isolated all the time?


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes