France will demand that fruit and vegetable farmers pay back their EU subsidies, according to French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire. Subsidies dealt to French farmers between 1992-2002 totalled some 500 million euros. AFP - French farmers will have to pay back hundreds of millions of euros in subsidies after the European Union ruled the state aid amounted to unfair competition, the agriculture minister said on Monday. Fruit and vegetable farmers received more than 330 million euros (468 million dollars) in illegal subsidies from the French state between 1992 and 2002, according to the European Commission. "We will have to launch proceedings to be reimbursed by the farmers," said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper.
AFP - French farmers will have to pay back hundreds of millions of euros in subsidies after the European Union ruled the state aid amounted to unfair competition, the agriculture minister said on Monday.
Fruit and vegetable farmers received more than 330 million euros (468 million dollars) in illegal subsidies from the French state between 1992 and 2002, according to the European Commission.
"We will have to launch proceedings to be reimbursed by the farmers," said Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper.
What is not corrected in the article is that these were not subsidies directly to farmers, but to infrastructure and commercial development through different professional organisations.
There's no way the state is going to get the money back from individual farmers.
