Brussels, 26/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has energetically defended the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) against all those who, like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, say it is a relic from the past that costs the EU far too much. “I do not believe that it is valid to claim that the CAP absorbs too high a percentage of the EU budget compared with other activities. That percentage is high only because agriculture is the only fully funded EU policy”, Mr Ahern recalls in an article published in The Financial Times on Monday. “Calls for radical CAP reform are misplaced and outdated; they are based on a misunderstanding of the role of the CAP in European society and the world economy; they are based on a false premise about the relative cost of the CAP; and they ignore the realities of the WTO”, he states. Mr Ahern gives two main reasons for justifying his support of CAP: EU food supply security and the socio-economic consequences that dismantling this policy would have in rural areas of the EU. “It is clear that if the EU eliminated or significantly reduced support for agriculture, European farms on the margins of commercial viability would go out of business and European agricultural production would fail rapidly. The food supply gap would be filled by imports from, for example, South America and Australia, which can produce at prices below European levels. Europe's food supplies could, once again, become vulnerable”, Mr Ahern stressed. At the socio-economic level and the environmental protection level, “any significant cutback in the policy would result in serious damage to the social and economic fabric of rural areas across Europe”, Mr Ahern warns. The Irish prime minister also rejects the argument whereby the CAP prevents the commercial development of developing countries. “Charges that the CAP is damaging developing countries' ability to trade are not correct”, he explains, recalling that the EU is “by far the largest importer of agricultural products from developing countries” importing goods to the value of about EUR 35 bn at zero or very low tariffs (only EUR 18 billion for the United States). “The EU imports more from developing countries than the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand combined”, he points out. Mr Ahern also deplores the fact that those opposed to CAP are ignorant of the fact that EU farm spending has already significantly declined over recent years.