Farm chief says food export support regime still on menu

Date: 24/01/02

By David Cronin

THE European Commission has vigorously defended the European Union's €5 billion-per-year regime for supporting food exporters, even though it has agreed to phase the payments out.

Director-General for Agriculture José Manuel Silva Rodríguez this week told MEPs that export refunds remained a 'fundamental part' of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). They should continue to be applied, he added, albeit with better management and greater rigour than before.

The Spanish official was commenting on a recent report by the European Court of Auditors that pinpointed suspected irregularities involving more than €100 million in refunds paid to exporters to compensate them for the difference between prices within the Union and those on wider international markets.

Some members of the European Parliament's committee on budget control contended, though, that the regime must be eliminated. They have seized on a section in the report on allegations that EU-produced butter exported to Estonia was being re-imported by the Union falsely labelled as Estonian butter.

Welsh Socialist Eluned Morgan called on the Commission to set a timetable for getting rid of the refunds.

The non-binding commitment made by EU delegates at November's World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference in Doha to gradually phase out the regime 'frankly means nothing' without clear targets, she said.

German Conservative Diemut Theato, who chairs the committee, linked the debate to the more general one on the export of live animals.

That trade should end, she argued, for both economic and ethical reasons.

Silva Rodríguez said the Commission plans to bring forward plans in the first half of this year on requiring member states to enforce penalties against firms making fraudulent claims for refunds.

The European Commission has vigorously defended the European Union's 5 billion euro-per-year regime for supporting food exporters, even though it has agreed to phase out the payments.