Whilst EU agriculture ministers are meeting in Brussels today for an emergency debate on the sharp rise in food and agriculture product prices on global markets, European Liberal Youth (LYMEC) wishes to take this occasion to restate its call for a disbanding of the CAP and to underline that the global food crisis only strengthens the case for such a reform.

Aloys Rigaut, President of LYMEC, stressed: ‘At a time when EU citizens are all suffering a deep loss of purchasing power with the rise of food prices, it is totally unacceptable that the EU continues to apply very high import tariffs on agricultural products from the rest of the world. With such policy the CAP is not only keeping EU food prices artificially high but also is preventing the agricultural sector of developing countries to mature and grow’.
He then added: ‘With global markets booming, it is time for the EU to remove all quota systems and go for a total liberalisation of markets. This increase in food prices should be good news for EU farmers: let them freely respond to that global demand. We don’t have petrol but we have a strong agriculture, so for once let’s use that competitive advantage!’ before adding: ‘We strongly believe that market mechanisms can successfully regulate the global demand and supply of food products and we ask for agrarian freedom. The CAP may have been useful to create a competitive EU agricultural sector but it’s now time to disband it and let market forces play their role’.

The CAP is going to pay out in 2009 nearly 43 billion Euros (about 32% of the total EU budget) in direct payments to farmers and market-related expenditures, not to mention other subsidies to farmers coming on the EU rural development budget line. LYMEC advocates that that the CAP should be phased out so that the EU Budget can focus on other priorities such as climate change, energy supply, or research and innovation. It has just launched a new campaign entitled: ‘CAP is CRAP: EU Budget needs new priorities’.

This entry was posted on Miércoles, Mayo 21st, 2008 at 2:12 and is filed under IFLRY/LYMEC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.