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Reaping what they have sown?

Sunday, 5th October 2008

The bureaucratic empire of the EU repays support by playing fast and loose with agricultural budgets, writes Jeffrey Titford MEP.

I have just received a joint letter from the Committee of Professional Agricultural Organisations in the EU (COPA) and the General Confederation of Agricultural Co-operatives in the EU (COGECA). They have a bee in their collective bonnets about the "proposed and repeated transfers of unused funds from the agricultural budget to finance other EU policies and measures" and have contacted me in my capacity as a member of the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee.

The language of the letter is very strong. "This continued violation of budgetary rules is totally unacceptable, especially if the agricultural budget serves repeatedly as an open cash box.  Budgetary rules must not be undermined." The transfers of funds to which they refer are the Galileo satellite project, the emergency measures in the fisheries sector and the proposed aid to developing countries in the context of rising food prices.

These three transfers respectively took or will take £2.7 billion, £478 million and £797 million out of the EU’s agriculture and administration budgets. To a very large extent I share the righteous indignation of COPA and COGECA and was indeed raising concerns about agricultural funds being spent on the ridiculous white elephant Galileo satellite system in this column, as long ago as November last year. They rightly point out that the poor economic situation in developing countries and the bailing out of the Galileo system can hardly be described as "unforeseen circumstances", as defined under article 22 of the inter-institutional agreement, which lays down the rules on such matters.

They add that the proposed funding for developing countries hit by high food prices is quite clearly development aid and should come out of the European Development fund.  It is also pointed out that a number of recommendations have been made for spending unused agricultural funds within the same sector, including a Community Milk Fund to be used to help ease the ending of milk quotas in 2015, but these have been ignored or dismissed.  The latter idea on the basis that there are no financial resources for agriculture!

However, the great flaw in all their arguments is the long term support they have given to the European Union.  I am a great believer in that old saying: "you reap what you sow".  COPA and COGECA have been and presumably still are enthusiastically pro-EU. In other words they have actively supported the creation and development of an anti-democratic, top-down bureaucratic empire that has the power to do virtually what it likes, including helping itself to funds supposed to be spent on agriculture, for anything it thinks fit.  I am pleased that they have begun to awaken to some of the symptoms of the great disaster being visited upon the peoples of Europe, but they have yet to diagnose the real illness.

Meanwhile, the unelected European Commission is busily trying to change the rules to pave the way for completely unhindered transfers of funds.  In other words, an open cheque book that would make a mockery of any budget formally agreed in advance by the European Parliament.  If you think about it, such a proposal would also give them unbridled power to do anything they like because they can finance it by helping themselves to any uncommitted finance.

One can't help wondering what will happen if a sudden unforeseen catastrophe hits farming in Europe and all the uncommitted monies in the agriculture budget have been diverted to Africa or outer space. I suspect the response will be "hard cheese".

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