CAP reform wins support

THE latest attempt to reform the CAP is the most complex ever because they are aimed at not just the EU's seven million farmers, but at millions of farmers in eastern and central Europe.

Although EU farmers have largely rejected them, the European Commission has been boosted by the favourable reaction in candidate countries to the idea of more money for low-intensity farming and rural development.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen travelled to Warsaw to pitch the Fischler package to a Polish government worried about the future for its two million farms, many of them tiny.