Strasbourg, 11/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 11 December, the European Parliament softened and simplified to as great an extent as possible the cross compliance system making the payment of EU farm aid contingent upon respect of environmental, food safety and animal welfare standards. Adopting by an overwhelming majority (635 to 21 with 13 abstentions) a report by Jan Mulder (ALDE, the Netherlands), the European Parliament introduced changes to the initial proposal to make the cross...