‘Everything must be on the table'

By Simon Taylor - 05.10.2006 / 00:00 CET

EU leaders agreed last year on a no-holds barred review of all areas of spending in 2008-09. The UK and other pro-reform countries such as Sweden did not even try to disguise their plans to use the review to launch a new attack on the EU's system of support to farmers which costs about €60 billion annually. But Mariann Fischer Boel, the agriculture commissioner, is sending a reassuring message to Europe's farmers that she is not planning another major reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), only three years after the last set of major changes.

Please log in to read this article:

Don't have a login yet?

Discover your benefits and register for free now! It only takes a minute.

Subscribe to European Voice for €15 per month

Transatlantic Economic Council faces uncertain future

ALLOWING the US to export 30,000 tonnes of poultry meat to the EU, 0.3% of its total consumption, may not seem much of a breakthrough in a transatlantic trade relationship worth €1.6 trillion. But if, as expected, in June the EU ends the ban it has maintained for 11 years because the US uses antimicrobial agents to eliminate salmonella, it will mark the first positive result of the Transatlantic Economic Council.

EPAs pose threat to ACP regional integration

Negotiations over Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with the European Commission have divided the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that are the ostensible beneficiaries. The Commission has managed to secure the initialling of some agreements, but the majority of ACP states have refused to take such a step.