An appreciable, but probably ineffectual, effort by Ireland. At the beginning of the month, the Irish Presidency of the Agriculture Council distributed a document containing a few truths about the Union's agricultural policy (see our bulletin of 8 May, pp 9/10). This document demonstrates that the CAP has been reformed in the right direction, taking account of the genuine interests of nature and of humanity, and destroying the myth of European agriculture as a closed shop, arrogant and swaggering. The EU is the world's largest importer of agricultural products, it absorbs most of the exports from poor countries, it is the only one to give these countries sizeable trade preferences (in particular, it buys 85% of Africa's agricultural exports), it has radically reduced export subsidies for its agricultural products and support to its internal prices. And yet, you can ask anyone whether Europe is more an importer or an exporter of agricultural products, they'll tell you all about its protectionism on imports and subsidies for export, ending up with "Europe as fortress" and concluding that it exports far more than it imports. Which is quite simply not true. The Irish Presidency recommended that its document be widely distributed, to developing countries in particular, presenting it as an effort to improve "communication" with the rest of the world and the better to get reality across; otherwise, the "future of European agricultural policy could be determined not by the Council, but by external forces".
From the point of view of communication, I am somewhat sceptical about the result of this attempt. Again and again, we will read nonsense or the usual lies. How can it be so difficult for people to understand the truth? One of the main reasons is, I believe, that the nonsense and lies are largely the work of political forces and the European media. You don't have to look too hard for enemies of European agriculture: they are out in force in the political classes of many Member States, in a section of the press (which, out of ignorance or bad faith, echoes American, and other, accusations), in lobbies defending the interests of world trade and huge multinationals (which lack neither the means nor the accomplices). Furthermore, rather than acting modestly and effectively "on the ground", a small number of NGOs mainly just want to be visible to the big cities of the West, and are unable to hide their political tendencies, whilst the improvement of living conditions for people in unutterable circumstances is the least of their worries.
Initial result positive, but... Under these circumstances, the Lamy-Fischler initiative for the conditional phasing out of export subsidies for European agricultural products forces our international partners to put their cards on the table, and unveils any amount of hypocrisy. We now know who is genuinely prepared to get rid of their own subsidies to agriculture (of whatever type); we will see who understands, and effectively wants to protect, the interests of the poorer countries, and who is actually using this to defend their own interests. Despite varying levels of appreciation within the EU, which I flagged up in this column yesterday, the brave wager by the two European Commissioners caused an expected shock: the welcome by the main WTO members, which became apparent at the informal ministerial-level meeting in Paris, interpreted in general as an "unblocking" (see our bulletin yesterday, page 15), which should allow official WTO negotiations to be relaunched, with the participation of all. But we shouldn't go from excessive pessimism to excessive optimism. We should bear in mind that:
we still know almost nothing about the G20 countries' intentions in the industrial sector. Are they ready to start opening up?
the envisaged compromise on the so-called "Singapore" subjects in practice means abandoning them, which bears no relation to Pascal Lamy's ambitions of going towards "globalisation under control and regulated". This subjects exceeds the framework of the next Doha round, and I expect to come back to it;
within the field of agriculture, only one part has shifted, and that's export subsidies, whereas the issue of internal subsidies is still open, and the main plank, market access, remains riddled with conflict. The EU is not able to make excessive concessions on this subject (in the very interest of the poorest countries). I find the imprecise attitude to this of some of the ACP countries worrying and disconcerting. Such will be the subject of this column tomorrow.
(F.R.)