Sometimes I have the impression that I'm at the helm of a “supertanker”, said Mariann Fischer-Boel at the ELDR Congress in Stockholm on 30 October. According to the European Commission for matters agricultural, it was impossible to turn such a beast around. All that could be done was, perhaps, nudge it, “slowly and gently”, in a direction that would see the common agricultural policy come more into line with the realities of the agricultural markets. Let's just hope that this supertanker does not flush out its tanks off the European coasts. (M.B.)