EU losing the PR war - Sutherland

By Paul Mooney

The EU has failed to convince its counterparts in the WTO that anything has really changed for farmers in Europe, former head of the GATT said Peter Sutherland in Dublin last week. The Single Farm Payment system is changing and will continue to change the face of rural Europe, he said. But the many changes are not recognised by many of the EU's trading partners.

"In short, the EU has a communications job to do. If the nub of the issue in the Doha Round is that Europe cannot, at one and the same time, go through a painful and profound reform of the CAP - for the third time in 15 years - integrate 10 new members and tear down its tariffs protecting farmers from the full might of international competition, then we will need to do better in convincing the rest of the world why not,'' he told the Guild of Agricultural Journalists.

Food security

"While we are doing it, we will also have to make clear - as, in practice, do the WTO rules - that the European Union is not required, and cannot be so required, to give up all semblance of a rural community producing food from within rather than relying solely on suppliers outside. This, also, was a founding principle of the CAP and, given the experience of the post-war years, understandably so. The European Union is a massive importer of food - the largest importer of all and the largest importer from developing countries - even as things stand. Yet there remains an issue of food security, as is the case in every other WTO member. A community the size of the European Union simply cannot give up farming because other suppliers can deliver more cheaply.''

What Europe cannot expect to do is hold onto markets elsewhere on the basis of subsidized food production in the EU, he warned. But the notion that European farm exports continue to unfairly flood the world is simply wrong.