European Union - cui bono?

[Acrylic-bob]

Following the recent hoo-hah over the EU Constitution and the French Government's demand that the remaining member states continue with ratification irrespective of the recent referendum upsets, I decided to do a bit of digging. I was a little concerned that most of the names that turned up as authors or contributors to the drafting of the constitution rejected by the French electorate, turned out to be, oddly, French!

I shall have more to say on this anon.

But in passing, as it were, I happened upon this interesting gobbet of information, courtesy of Jeffrey Titford MEP. Now you all know me, I am as fair and as even handed as the next man but, I have to say, this has got my back up a bit.

SCANDAL OF SECRET FRENCH FARM SUBSIDIES

This leads to me neatly on to the subject of French farm subsidies, which sheds a great deal of light on why the CAP is so expensive. I was fascinated to see the recent report issued by the Court of Accounts in France, which has devoted a year's futile research to an attempt to understand the way CAP subsidies are paid to farmers. They have confessed their failure and say that French farmers are receiving at least 5.47 billion Euro a year in European subsidies, from a system that is unaccountable, uncontrolled and open to abuse.

France is the largest beneficiary of the EU's agricultural programme but according to farming experts, the Court of Account's damning conclusions are just as applicable to the rest of the Community. To make matters worse, the report reveals that French farmers also receive a further 1 million euro subsidy from their own Government.

Apparently, there are (officially) 663,000 farms in France but the Court of Accounts estimates that there were over 1 million recipients of subsidies. In a statement that would be funny if it weren't for the fact that it is our money being spent as well, an official of the European Commission said: 'This seems strange. In theory, only farmers should be getting money'. Much of the money seems to be spent on activities other than agriculture, a third of all subsidies are inflated or incorrect because of mistakes or fraud and only a fifth of these sums are ever recovered.

The system is so complex that the Court describes detailed scrutiny as 'impossible'. Apparently French agriculture receives 300 separate types of subsidy from Brussels, 140 types from Paris and 38 types jointly financed by Paris and Brussels. The system is literally a French farce and consumes nearly half of the EU's total annual budget. It is an insult to the long suffering farming community in Britain.


The rest of what Mr Titford has to say may be found here...
http://www.jeffreytitfordmep.co.uk/n...cat=3&TB=home3