Don't ever work with children and animals, they say. A view I can appreciate after trying to persuade French sheep to co-operate for a piece to camera for tonight's BBC News at Ten. Having herded them into the corner of a field in Picardy they simply won't bound about behind me in a tele-visually attractive manner however much I walk backwards into the flock trying to provoke them. Of course when they do oblige and bound around full of the joys of spring I fluff my lines. There is no chance of persuading them to regroup for a retake. I am chasing sheep around Northern France for a report on the reform of one of the European Union's most expensive and most controversial policies. The Common Agricultural Policy no longer takes up 70% of the EU's budget as it did in the 70s but at 43% and a cost of nearly £40bn a year, it is still the EU's most expensive policy. Today the European Commission publishes its "health check" on the CAP which is a prelude to much more serious reform.
Don't ever work with children and animals, they say. A view I can appreciate after trying to persuade French sheep to co-operate for a piece to camera for tonight's BBC News at Ten. Having herded them into the corner of a field in Picardy they simply won't bound about behind me in a tele-visually attractive manner however much I walk backwards into the flock trying to provoke them. Of course when they do oblige and bound around full of the joys of spring I fluff my lines. There is no chance of persuading them to regroup for a retake.
I am chasing sheep around Northern France for a report on the reform of one of the European Union's most expensive and most controversial policies.
The Common Agricultural Policy no longer takes up 70% of the EU's budget as it did in the 70s but at 43% and a cost of nearly £40bn a year, it is still the EU's most expensive policy.
Today the European Commission publishes its "health check" on the CAP which is a prelude to much more serious reform.
When you talk about the R&D budget, the EU bit would need to be added to all the national budgets on the same topic to be compared to the CAP, for instance. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
