Czechs claim farm subsidy plan will damage agriculture

Date: 14/02/02

By David Cronin

PRAGUE is warning that the European Commission's farm support proposals for states bidding to join the EU could badly affect Czech agriculture.

Milos Zeman's government has queried the process by which Brussels officials have calculated how much farmers in the entrant countries will receive in subsidies.

The Commission has proposed that the payments will start at 25 of the level enjoyed by existing member state farmers, with the sums being gradually increased to 100 over a ten-year period.

However, Czech EU ambassador Libor Secka said this was 'unreasonable'.

The Commission's figures are based on output in 1995-99, when the Czech farming industry was going through a huge decline, and Prague believes this will result in discrimination in some cases.

However Prague, along with most of the other candidate country capitals, is hopeful it can negotiate a better deal on farm support post-enlargement.

This view was echoed by Slovenia's European affairs minister Janez Potocnik, who said there was 'room for manoeuvre' over the proposals, particularly in respect of the quotas on which the aid would be based.

However he added.that he did not wish to 'raise expectations' among his country's farmers that a more favourable package would be secured. Potocnik was speaking in Brussels after talks with Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen - his first meeting with a representative from one of the 10 accession frontrunners since the proposals were unveiled on 30 January.

EU foreign ministers are due to debate the package at their meeting next week (18-19 February).

Under the Commission's plan, the initial enlargement bill would be €40 billion, with nearly €30 billion spent in 2004-2006. Several member states are seeking for it to be trimmed by about €10 billion.

French European affairs minister Pierre Moscovici said this week that the European economy was in worse shape than in 1999, when the farm budget through to 2006 was set in Berlin.

However, speaking in Warsaw after a meeting with his Polish opposite number Danuta Huebner, Moscovici did not rule out the prospect of further negotiations on the package being offered to candidate countries. 'The level and the pace [of aid payments] proposed by the Commission can form a basis for talks,' he said.

• The Czech Republic is seeking a ten-year exemption on enforcing an EU directive requiring increases in the size of cages for battery hens.

They have also asked for permission to label the national drink, slivovice, as fruit brandy because it is made from plums.

The Commission has previously stated that it should be classified as a spirit.

Prague is warning that the European Commission's farm support proposals for states bidding to join the EU could badly affect Czech agriculture.