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arcas 1 spoke about earlier that is
still mainly a question for national
governments. The British govern–
ment, for example, gives subsidies
to farmers to plow up marginal
land. It's not the Community that
gives them. The Community pro–
vides th e price guarantees that
may make the whole operation
economically viable, but it is the
British government that ever since
EECMEMBER
like lreland or ltaly or Greece-· -
which are dependent on agriculture
and less developed technically–
cou ld find the financia! resources
either to go on supporting farm
incomes in the way that incomes
have been supported over the last
1O years, or to go on
fi
nancing the
modernization and improvement of
agriculture.
The countries that would be hurt
EEC BUDOET 1983
CONTRIBUTIONS VS. RECEIPTS
Millions of Dollars
($U.S. 1982)
TOTAL
CONTRIBUTED TO EEC
RECEIVED FROM EEC
IN
Millions of Dollars ($U.S. 1982)
5603
W.
GERMANY
3631
U.K.
5025
3053
FRANCE
A398
4398
ITALY
2810
4289
NETHERLANDS
1532
1828
896
BELGIUM
1210
DENMARK
413
709
389
GREECE
1083
IRELAND
194
884
WXEMBOURG
26
272
the wartime food shortages has
pursued a policy of encouraging
farmers by means of financia!
incentives to increase the amount
of land under cultivation.
Since Britain is now more than
self-sufficient in cereals and not
doing badly in animal products,
maybe the time has come for the
British government, within the
framework of its national responsi–
bilities, to ask whether these finan–
cia! subsidies for plowing up land
are really justified.
What Common Market countries
will be hurt t he most if subsidy l ev–
els are cut rathe r drast ically?
Those who will be hurt most will
be those most dependent on agri–
culture in the first place. And sec–
ondly, those that have the lowest
GNP per head and cannot easily
afford to make up the loss of
income to its farmers by direct
national aids.
1 very much doubt if countries
14
VAT .... . . . . 13756-
24,625
(Value Added
Tax)
Agricultura! price
TOTAL
support, fisheries and
OUT
farm modernization
. . . . .. . . . .. 16315 -
24,625
Regional development
. . . . ..... ... 2332
Sociallund . . . . . 1411
Energy research . 1367
Reimbursements. 1080
Development ald . . 975
Administration ... 746
European Parliament,
Court
ol
Juslice
&
Olher
institutions . . . . . 399
worst are' Ireland, Italy and Greece,
with France occupying a rather
intermediary position. The Benelux
countries plus Germany and Den–
mark would all be hit because they
have all got an important agri–
cultura! sector. Nevertheless
they've got relatively greater finan–
cia! resources they could use.
In February t he European Com–
mission Vice President , Christo–
pher Tugendhat, said in London:
" The Community is virtually at the
limit of it s financia! resources. "
What must be done t o save t he
Community's agricu ltura! po l icy
and diffuse the budget ary c risis?
There is no doubt that the Com–
munity has left it to the 11th hour
to make the necessary changes. The
Commission, which is responsible
for the management of the Com–
mon Agricultura! Policy and also
for making policy proposals, has
been urging reforms on the Council
of Ministers for the past three or
four years, but with ratber limited
success.
Now we are unfortunately in the
situation where there is no longer
any financia! room for maneuver
because the Community· has, as
Vice
P~;esident
Tugendhat said,
practically reached the limit of its
budgetary resources under the trea–
ty.
lf
the Council of Ministers
adopts all the proposals that we
have made for reforming the Com–
mon Agricultura! Pol icy and in
addition agrees to a vi rtual price
freeze, then we might just be able
to stay within budget limits in
1984.
1
profoundly hope that we
will be able to do that.
l f the Coun ci l of Ministers
can 't agree to all the reforms or
can't ag_ree to the price freeze–
it's very difficult at one and the
same time to accept a cut in pro–
duction and a freeze on prices,
which is what we are proposing in
the milk sector-then obviously
we will not be able to stay within
our budget ceiling.
Would you set the Commo n
Market in hi stor ica l con tex t ?
Sometimes we forget t hat t he EEC
has only been in existence for 25
years.
Although the Western European
nations may be old-actually not
all of them are- the Europeán
Community itself is very young.
l t's been in existence 25 years,
which is not very long in historical
terms. The United States has exist–
ed for two centuries.
1 think most people would agree
that in the United States the "melt–
ing pot" is still in many ways an
imperfect one; that is to say, there
are still very strong regional senses
of identity within the United States
inspiteofthe fact that the U.S. has a
common political system, common
language and 200 years of history.
The European Community is a
recent creation. lt 's limited to the
economic sphere and increasingly
the diplomatic, but there has only
been a period of about 20 years for
the process of European integration
to become assimilated by our nation–
al political systems, and we are still a
long, long way from any kind of
political integration that you have in
older federations like the United
States or Switzerland.
o
The
PLAIN TRUTH