Europe’s costly farm subsidies must be reformed because they damage the developing world, Tony Blair warned last night as Britain and France squabbled publicly over financing the EU enlargement.
Hours of furious wrangling at the Brussels summit ended with agreement on 45-billion- euros worth of budget and agricultural payments being offered to the 10 countries joining in 2004.
It followed this week’s unexpected agreement between France and Germany, sidelining and annoying Britain, which appeared to damage hope of radical change to the common agricultural policy.
With Jacques Chirac, the French president, still sniping at Britain’s long-established entitlement to a budget rebate, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, was adamant that far-reaching reform remained firmly on the agenda.
”This has been a very successful summit and represents a major step forward towards enlargement,” the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who chaired the meeting, declared.
”There is no reason to hide that we have been through very difficult and tough negotiations.”
Earlier Blair expressed his deep concern about the agreement reached between Chirac and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, before the summit to keep the cap at 30-billion British pounds a year from 2006 to 2013.
”The truth is that the cap does damage to the developing world and reform is inevitable,” the prime minister insisted during a break in the negotiations.
”We have to make sure there is change. We understand the concerns countries have about protecting their agriculture, but the world is only moving in one direction and that is liberalisation.”
The Chirac-Schroder agreement represents a revival of the Franco-German axis, once an indispensable feature of EU politics, whose decline in recent years has allowed Britain to build ad hoc alliances and pursue its own economic and political goals.
”If there is no Franco-German accord, Europe grinds to a halt,” the visibly delighted Chirac said. He accused Britain of avoiding paying for enlargement, because its rebate remained untouched.
The reform-minded Sweden and the Netherlands were also disappointed, but like Britain had little choice but to acquiesce in the failure to slim down the cap — which takes almost half the entire EU budget.
Chirac is always a fierce defender of French farmers, who are still the main beneficiaries of subsidies from Brussels. Diplomats said he appeared to have emerged the winner of the two-day summit.
But Mr Straw said: ”It is a good deal for Europe, for the UK and a good deal for the nations that want to join the EU. Meaningful reform for the cap stays on course,” he insisted.
Pushing its luck, France tried but failed to remove a communique pledge that cap spending must be compatible with the EU’s international obligations under the Doha trade liberalisation round. – Guardian Unlimited