The Guardian reports on how European protectionism is harming the Third World.
The European commission yesterday launched a ferocious attack on poor countries and development campaigners when it dismissed calls for big cuts in Europe’s farm protection regime as extreme demands couched in "cheap propaganda".
In a move that threatens to shatter the fragile peace ahead of next week’s trade talks in Cancun, Mexico, Franz Fischler, the EU agriculture commissioner, said Brussels would strongly defend its farmers.
He said many recent attacks on the EU’s much maligned common agricultural policy (CAP) were"intellectually dishonest" PR stunts.
Mr Fischler’s comments came as Britain’s trade secretary, Patricia Hewitt, warned that failure at Cancun would be "disastrous for the global economy" and a severe setback in the fight against terrorism and poverty.
Europe’s CAP is an effort that attempts to lock the developing world out of European markets. It is the kind of economic protectionism that harms the world market, raises prices for Europeans, and breeds more poverty and instability worldwide.
Those arrogant and unilateral Europeans with their simplistic foreign policy…
(Link via InstaPundit)
True, Europe has a Common Agricultural Policy to preserve its agriclture sector. This sector is the ONLY one with such a protection.the reason is very simple: food (unlike any other product) is absolutely necessary to live. We cannot take the risk to lose our farmers( the mining industry in France disappeared because of globalization), and to starve if in 50 years a war emerge with our food providers. For safety reasons, the US decided to check everyone’s body with biometrical IDs. The EU just make sure we’ll always eat for safety reasons.
In the US, steel is protected. Is that all? go to http://www.wto.org, and check what are the products being protected.
“Those arrogant and unilateral Europeans with their simplistic foreign policy…”
Working for the federation of commerce of the EU, let me tell you that our International Trade policy is far from being simplist. We propose for example a totally free acces for African-Carribeans-pacific products in order to help the third-world. Do you have anything in the States that sounds like that? Well, you proposed to give money to the African countries in order to develop GMOs. This means all the money is gonna go back in US big bio-corporations, and that african population will be forced to buy seeds every year, since GMOs cannot reproduce naturally.(only the first year is american-subsidised)
Exactly what planet are you on? There’s no such program in existence. Care to provide a source for this?
You’re foolhardy allegiance to an unregulated global market completely blinds you to the concept of national self-interest for foreign countries. To suggest that European farm subsidies should be held accountable for starving the third world is tantamount to saying that the American military is responsible for the slaughter of villagers in the Congo because American troops weren’t there to stop the local thugs from terrorizing their neighborhood.
National self-interest has to come into play somewhere in the equation, and the Europeans recognize they need to adapt a certain level of protectionism to keep from being dependent on other nations for their food supply as a result of the glorious global economy pricing them out of the market. Even some conservatives have the sense to recognize the need for such policy at home in regards to steel, but not Jay Reding. Never Jay Reding.
try to catch today’s Financial Times. You may learn some…you’re country has turn out to become securitarian since september 11.
You’re getting quite aggressiv against Europe recently .Something’s wrong Jay?
You’re proving nothing else that you’re wrong by losing your nerves. Just have a nice and quiet chat please. Besides a few stupid person sometimes, no one is insulting others. Remenber you banned people from your site for that!!!