Is it due to the approaching retirement of the European Commissioner for Agriculture that led Franz Fischler to turn his back on the usual diplomatic language and vigorously unmask the lies about the EU's agricultural policy?. Whatever the reasons for this explosion (see this section yesterday) his "Berlin speech") is expected to have as large a distribution as possible and deserves more media airplay. In the hope that this section brings a small contribution to the debate, I would like to add some comments on the ideas of Mr Fischler by looking again at yesterday's schemas.
1. Old mistakes in CAP have been corrected. It is objectively false and intellectually dishonest to put the idea across that the common agricultural policy is dragging with it the mistakes it partially contained twenty or thirty years ago. I can assert unreservedly that this section was very firm in denouncing the errors, sometimes based on the prophetic ideas of Guido Ceronetti ("monculture, sad campaigns etc"), sometimes on the facts such as the frightening data on the butter mountains that were kept for years in energy-hungry refrigerated installations and which were in the end turned into animal feed; about milk, which after a very long and very expensive trajectory (but the money did not go missing for everyone) eventually got to the destination that the wise and patient cows had wished. I could go on with stories about squashed tomatoes and fruit crushed by tractors, meat mountains swollen by ignoble and landless cultivation techniques and disgraceful animal feeding methods; wine transformed into alcohol sold at a loss to Caribbean refineries to be mixed with petrol for the US market. All that's finished, thanks to a decade of reforms, all approved against the wishes of the large farming organisations, fiercely defending their rules which were justified at the beginning of CAP when the priority was to produce more in order to make the EU self-sufficient but which is now no longer the case.
2. European policy is beneficial for poor countries. We are now facing one of the greatest mystification campaigns of our epoch, trying to get the message across that the EU's trade policy in the agricultural sector damages the "third world" for three reasons: Europe puts up protective barriers at its borders, subsidises its farmers and certain exports. Only the third complaint is partially justified: the EU has to get rid of "export subsidies" which damage farming products from poor countries or which cause problems on their markets. For the others, it's part of the great mystification process to try and get us to believe that: a) total freeing up in world agricultural trade would be positive for poor countries (when in fact it would encourage "mono culture for exports", a devastating legacy of colonialisation, which makes these countries dependent for ever on food imports to the benefit of the multinationals and the most powerful international players in world trade; b)that it would benefit their exports when if fact it would provoke the suppression of European "preferences" (ACP countries would not export a single kilo of sugar, bananas etc if the EU's borders opened up to the whole world).
After having denounced the former hypocrisy f the "Cairns Group" and other major exporter countries of agricultural produce, Mr Fischer took the NGOs (including the Europeans) to task, which have used a barrage of lies to defame the CAP and Europe. It is obviously necessary to distinguish radically between the two categories of NGO: on one side there are those who "take action on the ground" and really do help the poor, helping them to organise their production and those who are always respectable and admirable; on the other side there are those who are guided by preconceived ideology and which aim to replace the institutions of democracy, sometimes employing violent means. The latter don't give a hoot about the poor, they are just interested in furthering their political goals. Mr Fischler denounced, without quoting the famous slogan according to which Europe gives EUR 2 each day to each of its cows when most of humanity does not have a single Euro per person in their daily lives. It is obvious that EU support aims to enable European farmers to attain a life that is comparable to that of the rest of the population but the slogans of this kind, shouted in the streets by the young have damaged Europe significantly. Mr Fischler was right to denounce the "immense cynicism" of some NGOs.
3. Europe has a duty to supporting its agriculture. Mr Fischler vigorously defended the CAP budget and proved that it was completely justified. I should, in order to back his ideas up, look again at what I wrote on several occasions about the meaning of agriculture for Europe: nature, biodiversity, territorial balance, landscape and tradition, therefore our whole civilisation is at stake. Getting the reader to look at one of our constant themes is a goal that I am able to accomplish in this section and this goal will not disappear
(F.R.)