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British support for EU tobacco farmers ‘ludicrous’
British taxpayers will contribute millions of pounds into a fund worth more than £200 million to subsidise southern European tobacco farmers this year.
Direct payments to tobacco farmers, which were due to expire in 2009, could now run until 2012 after the powerful block of southern European countries voted in the European Parliament to maintain the subsidy.
Despite Britain fully decoupling farm subsidies from production at the earliest opportunity after the 2003 CAP reform, its European counterparts are still pouring payments into the dying tobacco industry.
Chairman of the European Parliament Agriculture Committee, Neil Parish said, “It beggars belief that whilst food prices are going through the roof, we are still directly funding tobacco farms around Europe. On the one hand the EU talks about cutting dependency on tobacco, then on the other it sanctions an extra three years of direct tobacco subsidies, whilst virtually all other sectors have moved to an area based payment.”
Source: Farmers Guardian, 2nd June 2008
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