Mediterranean and other countries. Once again it falls to me to explain why the EU objective of a free-trade zone between the EU and third countries from the Mediterranean must be abandoned. I could revert to my previous commentaries but each time there is something new and additional arguments to add to the former. A premise: this article does not necessarily just address Mediterranean countries. If it was just dealing with them, it would be far more simple. But the EU is in similar negotiations with Latin America, Africa and some Asian countries. In Sir Leon Brittan's era, the promise of a free-trade zone was accepted by all and sundry: the Commission also envisaged the same thing for the Ukraine, Russia and (why not) the USA.
An explanation that doesn't hold water. Some Commission civil servants would come into the room armed with their figures and the promise that Europe had nothing to fear from such and such a country: a few additional thousand tons or so of such and such a product for importing, whilst the EU market is so vast…this explanation doesn't hold water: the whole picture must be taken into account. We oughtn't take into account the current production capacity of these countries and which promise unlimited access, but their potential production. I sometimes think that a number of Ministers, Commissioners, MEPs, Ambassadors and civil servants have learned nothing from the history of the EEC. And yet there are a number of examples that buck the trend, some instances where Europe has found itself in a free-trade situation vis-à-vis its products outside the common market: soya, manioc (duty free GATT arrangement), rice partly (due to the OCT/ACP agreement). The result? Disaster. No solution was found for soya, the borders remain wide open and Europe had to practically renounce production that was extremely important and desirable and which could have perhaps avoided the using of animal flour and therefore, the mad cow tragedy. Manioc (the totally free imports of which contributed to the aberration of its industrial production) and the necessity of negotiating a special and very costly agreement with Thailand. As for OCT rice, Europe had to make a U-turn and get rid of the cumulation of origin that the Council had so carelessly introduced. And to think that today we want to extend these sectoral problems to the totality of agricultural production! The result is not a hypothesis but a certainty: the end to a huge chunk of European agriculture.
The real beneficiaries of the operation. If this exercise were beneficial to poor countries and a tool for combating hunger throughout the world, Europe should accept it. But the opposite is true! Global demographic forecasts prove that food production should be intensified and rationalised. And they want us to believe that the solution to this painful problem lies in the total opening up of European territories, whose inhabitants correspond to around 5% of the world population and which is generally overfed rather than the contrary! The total opening up of the European market will not help to solve the problem of starvation; on the contrary, it will be made worse by the disappearance of European agriculture. The EU market is attractive because it is profitable. Opening up the market would attract more farmers from other rich countries, the big international players, European importers and occasionally some local producers from poor countries. The big loosers will be the malnourished because the beneficiaries of the operation will focus on single-crop farming for export. This scourge will destroy the genetic heritage of crops and traditional food cultivation, as well as making the local population more reliant on imports. Agricultural free-trade zones between counties that are not equal denies the right to food autonomy, which should be the general rule and which Europe should encourage everywhere.
Projects which shouldn't be funded. In order to back these affirmations up, I have used some striking examples, such as the destruction that has been provoked in some African countries in the mono-culture of tobacco to the detriment of subsistence agriculture and which proves disastrous for the peasantry as soon as world prices fall. The evidence mounts. Monday 25 March, the Franco-German TV channel "Arte" will be showing a documentary on palm oil in Indonesia, filmed on location, and which will be shown again on 5 and 6 April, proving the importance which those in charge attach to it. I read in the introduction that, "In Indonesia, palm plantations threaten both the environment and the small peasantry…in the centre of Sumatra large organisations have cut down the forests and transformed the land into immense plantations. The palm oil producers have chased the peasants off their plots of land. Police and army use torture, assassination to protect the economic status quo. European governments' Community and aid development programmes help to fund this policy. Researchers should reflect upon the possible solutions that would enable the land to be re-used more effectively, while respecting the local population and environment". Think about it well, researchers but above all let those in Brussels, Strasbourg and elsewhere know that current policies can be modified.
Advantages for them…On the issue of the Mediterranean countries, a recent OECD report stated that "liberalisation scenarios are harmful to rural households" and that the different bilateral agreements with the EU, "initially benefit these countries but this advantage declines as neighbouring countries sign the same agreements". These advantages will disappear if Europe opens its markets to the giants of Brazil, China and India. At last there are some Mediterranean leaders who are aware of an important specific detail: that free-trade zones are supposed to be about reciprocity. These countries markets will be totally open to European production, which is more organised, generally more competitive and which in some sectors will literally submerge local production and end for ever any possibility of developing any local food industry. Mediterranean leaders are discovering the notion of the "multi-functional nature of agriculture", reflected upon and defended by Europe, which means that agriculture is not an economic activity like the others but which performs a number of roles; food safety, territorial balance, maintaining biological diversity, protection of the environment, traditions and landscape…Europe must recognise this for other countries, on the obvious condition that they recognise the same thing for Europe. Is it necessary to explain that a free-trade zone in which, hypothetically, agricultural products will be excluded, would be even more unacceptable for the Mediterranean countries and therefore should be rejected, even if it was incompatible with WTO rules? And that a certain number of them have explicit and clear reservations about free-trade in the services sector? The very principle of free-trade should be re-examined.
…and for Europe. If it is recognised that free-trade brings but disadvantages to non-EU Mediterranean countries (and countries in similar situations), I want to talk about the repercussions that the total opening up of the agricultural markets will have in the EU itself. A study on the consequences of agricultural free-trade with Mercosur countries, carried out a few years ago by the Commission was totally biased because it didn't take into account the cost of "compensation" paid to Community farmers in the sugar, meat, dairy product sectors etc. to make good their loss of income. A recent finding by the Economic and Social Committee on the "Euro-Mediterranean partnership" (published in Official journal C/36 8 February) on agriculture contained the same error. This remarkable finding generally went in the right direction. It recognised that liberalisation cannot ensure the creation of a prosperous common area alone and that free-trade has no sense unless it is set up initially among the Mediterranean countries themselves: "It is only with this condition that the region will become more attractive for international investors and benefit from capital flows". The objective should not be simply the opening up of the markets but a "genuine common market", with an "assistance policy" with technical and health standards and other long-term objectives. This finding even (and we can understand how very pleased I was to find such a statement in an EU document) says that partners countries shouldn't be encouraged to exclusively produce for the European market because this would benefit a handful of multi-nationals that pull the strings to trade and the large landowners and other local vested interests. It says that it would be better for them to prioritise the alimentary needs of their local populations. Despite this finding, the ESC's ultimate objective is the free and complete access to the European market for agricultural products and foodstuffs from Mediterranean countries and the request that CAP compensation be directed to EU regions directly affected by the increase in competition. On this point, I say no: the agricultural regions of the EU need their vineyards, citrus fruit, flowers, traditional cheeses, their secular cultivation techniques. They do not need compensation for the desertification and leaving fallow of their land and the subsequent condemnation of their people to a new exodus to the sinister shadow lands of the big cities.
It is necessary to look again at the real objectives of the Euro-Mediterranean partnerships and where progress has already been considerable: co-operation, financial and technical assistance, war on terrorism and illegal immigration, women's rights. In agriculture the two sides must move towards co-ordination of production and possible future trade organisation. The EU is the largest global importer of agricultural products and it will remain so. It can and must also make some additional concessions, such as that made to Argentinean meat and Moroccan tomatoes. But total and unlimited opening of its markets would be suicide.
(F.R.)