CAP reforms have transformed EU role in world trade talks, says Boel

THE reforms that have been carried out to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have transformed the role of the EU in world trade talks, according to agriculture and rural development commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel.

Speaking in South Africa, she said it was striking in the aftermath of the breakdown of last July’s world trade talks in Geneva that no-one was pointing at the EU as the villain of this play.

Ms Fischer Boel said: “In the EU, helping farmers used to mean supporting farm prices. To keep prices high, we spent large sums of public money on buying up unwanted produce and on subsidising exports. This approach was valid...but it ran out of control.