Partial payments CAP rejected
She said in Brussels last week that one of her goals is to see overall agriculture spending cut.
But she was adamant that the Common Agriculture Policy stay intact, and rejected “co-financing.”
She said she was against mandatory co-financing because she disagrees with Brussels imposing budget requirements on member states.
Optional co-financing would leave the decision of funding farmer payments up to the individual member states. If some member states chose to fund their farmers while others didn’t, it could lead to market distortions, she said.
She said co-financing is the first step towards re-nationalisation of agriculture, which she is vehemently against.
Meanwhile, her Commission colleague Peter Mandelson said EU farm export subsidies will not be abolished, but they must be reformed.
The Trade Commissioner said the Common Agriculture Policy serves very real key European as well as international needs, but it is not going to remain the same.
“It has changed. It is undergoing reform and it will undergo more reform because that’s what the public demands, that’s what international interest demands. It’s also what our budget demands,” he added.
Overhauling the CAP and wider EU budgetary and economic reform are expected to gather momentum if Germany’s Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is voted out of office.
Angela Merkel, of Germany’s Christian Democrats, is widely expected to defeat Schroeder’s party in an election expected in September.
But Thomas Matussek, Berlin’s ambassador to London, said Merkel would not prove a natural ally for Blair and would want to maintain Germany’s strong ties with France.
He said one of the fundamental beliefs of Merkel’s party was that the German-French engine was necessary for Europe and that the party was unlikely to abandon the interests of Germany’s farmers.
“Don’t let’s forget that the agricultural constituency is firmly anchored in her party,” he added.
