Strasbourg, 14/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - In Strasbourg on Tuesday 14 November, the European Parliament decided, as expected (see EUROPE 9296), to reject the proposal introducing the possibility, for those Member States which wished to do so, of reducing direct payments to farmers by up to 20%. Any savings thus made were to be transferred to rural development programmes. This proposal followed on from the European Council agreement of December 2005 on the 2007-2013 financial perspective...