Do the Reforms Make a Difference?
Not for the first time the EU is guilty of rank hypocrisy masquerading as progress. Once again the French have succeeded in blocking any meaningful reform of the CAP, and as the French farm ministry has boasted, “this reform preserves the essential principles of the Common Agricultural Policy.” The reforms will not result in any reduction in the CAP’s budget. The CAP will continue to be a huge welfare system for a relatively small group of large-scale elite European farmers who will continue to prosper. There is also no guarantee under the new system that the EU will stop creating and dumping vast food surpluses on developing countries, putting impoverished third world farmers out of business.
