The former British foreign secretary Robin Cook is backing a Europe-wide petition to help children orphaned by Aids in Africa by switching to them â,¬5bn in subsidies from rich European Union farmers.
The petition, also backed by the former British culture secretary Chris Smith, comes as 2005 is designated a year for Africa. Under the as yet unratified EU Constitution, the petition would force heads of the 25 member states to debate the issue were it to attract a million signatures. It already has the support of British churches and 120 MPs from all three major parties, including a clutch of former Labour ministers.
Britain takes on the presidency of the EU in the second half of next year and is likely to make further budgetary reform and a better development deal for Africa one of its strategic goals.
The initiative has the support in principle of the chancellor, Gordon Brown.
The petition, online at www.helpafricapetition.com, is the brainchild of the former ministers Gisela Stuart and Michael Wills.
Wills, a former Home Office minister, said: ”A quarter of the CAP [Common Agricultural Policy], over â,¬10-billion, goes to 2% of Europe’s biggest farmers, each getting, on average, â,¬50 000. So this proposal is not about taking help from struggling upland hill farmers, or the peasants of France and Greece. This is about agri-business.
”Why should millionaires get this handout they do not need when people are dying who could be kept alive if the money was available?”
The petition suggests rich farmers would lose half their current handouts.
In Britain alone, 224 of the biggest farmers received £47-million in 2003, according to Oxfam, an average subsidy of £2 every five minutes and larger than the total UK aid budget to Ethiopia. Subsidies are based largely on the amount of land under cultivation, but payments to individuals are kept secret.
The idea of the petition was first advanced by the Germans in an effort to reduce the lack of direct public involvement in Europe. Advocates of the petition are asking faith members at services and meetings over Christmas to seek support from their congregations.
Despite the fact that HIV infection rates are rising in sub-Saharan Africa, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB, and Malaria is assured of only a quarter of the funds that it needs for 2005.
Conservatives backing the petition include Peter Bottomley, and among Liberal Democrats the home affairs spokesperson Mark Oaten. Many charities plan to support the year for Africa as part of Britain’s presidency of the G8. – Guardian Unlimited Â