Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is one of the oldest EU policy. Orginally, in the sixties of the past century, intended to create enough food for stable prices, this policy collapsed under its own success. Mountains of cereals, lakes of milk, piles of buttter were the result. And subsidies, that is EU budget for CAP went up to more then 50% of the total budget. In the nineties the system of guaranteed prices was transformed into quota production. For this first time the Agricultural Council decided to enhance production of cereals because of the shortage and rising prices for cereals.
European Union agriculture ministers today approved the Commission's proposal to set at 0% the obligatory set-aside rate for autumn 2007 and spring 2008 sowings.
The change comes in response to the increasingly tight situation on the cereals market. It should increase next year's cereals harvest by at least 10 million tonnes. In the EU-27, a lower than expected harvest in 2006 (265.5 million tonnes) led to tightening supplies at the end of marketing year 2006/2007 and to historically high prices. Intervention stocks have shrunk from 14 million tonnes at the beginning of 2006/2007 to around 1 million tonnes now. The future of the set-aside system will form part of the debate to be kicked off by the Communication on the CAP 'Health Check' on 20 November. This will also address the issue of how to retain the environmental benefits which set-aside has brought. Setting the rate at zero does not oblige farmers to cultivate all their land. They can continue with voluntary set-aside and apply environmental schemes.
According to the press release: Cereals: Council approves zero set-aside rate for autumn 2007 and spring 2008 sowings
Friday, September 28, 2007
NEW CAP: from quotas to enhancement of production
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Split your story
This explains how to split your story
I have done some coding which enables the possibility to split the story after the first paragraph. In the editor you have now two option: text before the more tag and after the more tag
Tools
RSS feeds of the Commission:
http://europa.eu/rapid/syndication/setLanguage.do?language=en
Reading RSS from a webpages: use www.bloglines.com
Using photo's and video, copy embedded links from www.flickr.com and www.youtube.com in posting
Photo slide show, including audio, can be created with windows photo story.
Canada launches trade dispute with EU over seals
Canada has started a trade dispute with the EU on Wednesday over a Dutch and Belgium ban on seal products, saying that it is against the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). http://euobserver.com/9/24853
Belgium introduced a ban on seal products earlier this year and the Netherlands followed in July. The Dutch and Belgian bans exempt products from seals, hunted in the traditional way by Inuit.
Bloomberg, spokesman for Canada's minister of international trade Francois Jubinville, said that these bans have no scientific fact. ''We don't believe there is any basis from the point of view of science or conservation to justify banning imports of seal products,'' he said, adding that Canada exports 12.7 million euro worth of seal products to the EU every year.
The trade dispute might be intended to pre-empt a possible EU-wide ban because Brussels has already commissioned two studies investigating the trade following a call for a ban on seal products by the EP last year. Sealing is important to many remote coastal communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nunavur and Quebec, where other economic opportunities are limited. The EU is Canada's second largest market for seal prodcuts.http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/august/1/sealban/
Brussels is ''naturally disappointed by this move,'' said the department of EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson in a statement. It also added that the EU would defend its member states before the WTO and in the meantime continuing to study whether an EU-wideban on seal products is justified.
Antonie (euobserver,BBC)
Languishing in Guantanamo Bay
In an article that can be found here, the fate of 45 detainees in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is discussed. Like most of the prisoners in the camp, these men were wrongly imprisoned. Now that the American government has decided to free them, they have nowhere to go. And they're certainly not welcome in America.
These men face further torture and persicution upon returning to their respective countries of: Algeria, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. For one, I am at least glad to see that the US was not discriminating in who they chose to unlawfully detain and torture.
So, it is being purposed that the EU should take the prisoners and offer them asylum. After all, (through what means I can only imagine) these men have been "cleared for release." They are innocent men suffering among the 113 at Guantanamo. I just figured that everyone in Guantanamo was guilty, and I am a little worried; because if the US starts freeing these men as arbitrarily as they imprison them, the US will run out of prisoners. And then who will we torture? Vivisection is so 1992, and monkeys don't really count anyway.
Dutch green MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg told the EUobserver on Wednesday,
"We are calling on EU governments to agree to allowing them to be resettled in EU member states," Ms Buitenweg said, adding that the Union should assess each case individually to decide which country a Guantanamo detainee should be sent to.
This is good, because what better way for the EU to encourage the US to close their super-happy-fun camp in Cuba than by cleaning up the ash of their moral subterfuge?
- Frank Lemke
Monday, September 24, 2007
EU energy forum unveiled
The European Commission unveiled Friday that it launched a platform for nuclear energy research. The EU’s executive arm said in a statement that the platform will bring together industry and researchers to draw up a strategy "to prepare for the future and maintain European leadership in this sector.'' It’s launch has been very timely as the Commission prepares a Strategic Energy Technology Plan for the EU.
According to the statement, energy consumption worldwide is likely to double between 2000 and 2050, and nuclear energy will remain a key element in future low-carbon energy systems. ‘‘Europe has the largest nuclear industry in the world and one third of its electricity comes from nuclear plants so the platform is putting together researchers and industry to define and implement a Strategic Research Agenda and corresponding Deployment Strategy,’’ it added.
European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik said that ''for those countries that choose it,'' nuclear power will be ''a very important part of their solution to security of supply and reduction of greenhouse gases.'' She also said that two major political and public concerns must be addressed to make this possible: ensuring that nuclear power is economically competitive and to make nuclear power as neutral as possible in environmental terms and in terms of the legacy.
Antonie van Campen
(www.europa.eu/www.eubusiness.com/BBC)
Sunday, September 23, 2007
"If the Netherlands would vote 'no' again, what would happen?"
On Friday the Dutch government decided not to hold a referendum on the new EU treaty. The cabinet proposed that the EU’s Reform Treaty will be ratified by the parliament.
"If the Netherlands would vote 'no' again, what would happen?...a situation of new negotiations would not occur just like that. You shouldn't take new negotiations for granted."
D66 member of parliament Boris van der Ham told EUobserver "It is not logical to ask people in 2005 – what do you think? – and then not put the changed treaty to them now."
Article from the EUobersver.com
(Ragnhild E. Lea)
Friday, September 21, 2007
Brussels crushes Microsoft, gains regulatory power
An opinion piece in this week's Economist ("How the European Union is becoming the world's chief regulator") underlines the differences between the US and Europe's attitudes towards corporations' responsibility to consumers- and who has the bigger end of the regulatory stick right now.
"A victory for consumers and the free market. That was how the European Commission presented this week's ruling by European judges in favour of its multi-million euro fine for bullying competitors," the article says.
In the States, corporations are innocent until proven guilty in regards to their products, whereas in Europe the burden of proof rests on the corporation if their products are deemed unsafe or, like in Microsoft's case, unfair to its competitors.
The author of the article argues the "proscriptive European vision may better suit consumer and industry demands for certainty" and points out that there is a genuine competition to set global regulatory standards, a race which Europe is heading right now.
What does Brussels' ruling in the Microsoft case represent for American-European relationships? Is Europe becoming a protectionist fortress or is this case really a victory for consumers and the free market? Are Americans right when asking whether a squabble among American high-tech firms should end up being decided in Brussels and Luxembourg?
(Kinia A.)