France's Farm Policy Vision Fails Final EU Hurdle
Date: 01-Dec-08
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Jeremy Smith
BRUSSELS - France failed to persuade all 27 EU governments on Friday to sign up to its vision of farm policy before the bloc starts tough budget negotiations, even after it watered down the text to make it more acceptable.
Three countries -- Britain, Latvia and Sweden -- objected to the final version of the French paper that outlines broad principles for EU farm policy after 2013, although it had been turned into a fairly bland statement of priorities and concepts.
Earlier versions hinted at needing to keep a door open for old-style support systems, along with mentions of the doctrine of "community preference", where EU products are favoured over imports. To many in Brussels, that merely means import tariffs.
That reference was removed in the paper submitted to EU farm ministers at their Friday meeting, as was another to the EU goal of "market stabilisation", whose most likely interpretation -- according to some EU officials -- was price support mechanisms.
Several countries had voiced concern that if the paper became a political "conclusions" document at the meeting, the wording eventually agreed could be used later as part of a push to preserve, if not raise, farm spending during the EUs negotiations for the seven-year budget period starting in 2014.
France denies this, and says so in its paper.
"We went as far as we could in trying to find a compromise," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier said, adding that the three countries had shown their "clear opposition" to the text.
"This in no way prejudges the budgetary negotiations that will come later," he told a news conference.
POLITICAL CONCLUSIONS
Since the EU ministers could not agree unanimously, the French paper becomes known as "presidency conclusions", reflecting France's status as holder of the EU presidency, ending on Dec. 31. That change is politically very significant.
"The paper was changed quite a lot and wasn't accepted even then," one EU official said. "Also, if it had been endorsed at council (EU ministers), it could then have been used later as a reference point for other discussions," he said.
The paper does, however, retain one of its most cryptic phrases: the aim of guaranteeing the "wholesomeness" of EU farm products by "promoting ambitious food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards both inside and outside the Union."
While the European Union already sets strict food safety standards on imports as well as domestic food production, any EU move to impose its own animal welfare and environment standards on non-EU suppliers could violate international trade rules.
France, the EU's single largest grains producer and largest cash beneficiary of farm spending, had delivered a stream of rhetoric about the future of agriculture policy even before it took the EU's helm as bloc president on July 1.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
