dimanche 30 novembre 2008

Disagreements over EU farm plan

The EU farm ministers' talks in Brussels about the future of the CAP (Common Agricultural POlicy) didn't reach unanimous agreement.The UK, Sweden and Latvia objected to the final French draft on EU farm policy after 2013. According to the article, the UK wanted to bolder reforms of the CAP whereas France wanted to keep the current levels of farm spending, as it gets the biggest portion of CAp funding. As any unanimous agreement was found, the final document of th e meeting was called "presidency conclusions". It was mainly the French EU president point of view rather the one of the whole EU.

EU countries also disgreed about the proposal of increasing EU food aid to the poor in the EU. Britain and others said that it was a social issue that staet members should overcome individually. This had no "sense" to come out of the farm budget.

This "failed talk" expreses the situation of the EU nowadays. There are disagreements not only about the Common Agriculyural Policy but also about the whole EU future. Does it have to become a sort of country, for example a federal one such as the USA, does the EU have to take care of other common policy such as the social ones ? Or does it have to rmain as it is because, countries could only afford common policies about economic and security issues ? How far do the reforms have to go ?
The EU could be a "nation" with different cultures and "ethnological groups" who keep their "historic legacy", so that the countries could get on a better foot of equality, or that the Eu could be more opened to the world because it would have opened itself from the inside towards all the countries that compose it. (the critic of a rich white countries club).
But it might also be impossible to become that because, to become a nation, people need to forget some of their origins (Renan's speech 1882) to have a common past legacy. Who would let some of their avantages or values in which they believe for the ones of another country. The compromise seems hard to reach. In other words, the European countries are so different that they can't go further without big clashes.
But the most important is that, in order to manage with the EU future (to make its decisions more important against state members decisions, or to make it remain as it is today), the entire population of Europe needs to be willing of any future. However, it seems that their opinion are veyr distinct and oppposed, or that they don't really have an opinion.
So, be free to let me know your opinion about the EU : are you pro-EU, against the EU or balancing between the two distinct opinions ?

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