Quote:
Originally Posted by mousquet
What the heck is that joke? You forgot to point out the source of that thing. That's of a BBC article of 2005 when the UK's rebate was discussed and the British were defending it as hard as they could. Unfortunately I couldn't find the official contributions by country for the 1995-2003 period, just be aware that the numbers mentioned on that graph came from the British defending their piece of meat. Need I say more? Anyway...
Here is Wikipedia's article about estimates for the 2007-2013 budget... Damn wow, that's a huge, dramatic change compared to those numbers you gave us for 1995-2003, don't you think? It's pretty strange. I'm wondering how it could change so much in just a very few years. Any answer, anyone? Now for 2007-2013, although France is likely the main beneficiary of the CAP (common agricultural policy), our net benefit is superior by only € 6 billion to that of the UK whose agriculture is yet a complete failure, it's like abandoned and under-developed compared to France's agricultural business. So indeed the CAP is still the major EU expense whereas the UK doesn't benefit by it, simply because the British chose to give up agriculture (as well as industry) for their financial activities, that's the only reason why you call the CAP a waste. Everyone will appreciate how smart and skillful that British strategy is. Who's gonna feed them at the end of the day? |
I already referred to the €57bn figure in post #52 of this thread. The difference is most likely down to the erosion of France's dominance of CAP (now at around 21% -
http://cap2020.ieep.eu/member-states/france) what with the ascension of the former Soviet states into the EU.
France's net contribution to the EU is only €6bn less than the UK over the period because of the rebate. If the rebate was abolished there would not only be a significant rise in UK net contributions (last year alone the rebate was worth £3.3bn to the UK), but also a significant decline in French net contributions (i.e. towards the rebate). Nevermind the issue that France by most acknowledged measures has a larger population and economy than the UK.
Yet you proceed to have the audacity to not only go on a rant about the rebate and lower net contributions, but refer to other countries having under-developed/abandoned agricultural economies. You appear to be completely unaware of the irony in France being the biggest recipient of CAP monies.
The CAP and other agricultural-orientated EU funds have been and continue to be a major fraud that as Europeans, we all ought to be ashamed of. Not only are many large corporate entities (e.g. Nestle, Tate & Lyle, etc...) and wealthy land owners major CAP or EU agricultural payment recipients, but the system has lead to a consistent inefficient use of land and capital, and the creation of milk lakes and butter mountains due to scandalous waste. Meanwhile CAP policies not only artificially inflate food prices, but the system impoverishes developing economy agricultural sectors.
How on earth can we as a union justify spending close to 50% of our budget on agricultural, rural and fishing related subsidies. The top two recipients of CAP and other agricultural moneys in France consist of sugar producers: Saint Louis Sucre and Tereos, while the fourth biggest recipient is a retail bank: Credit Agricole! It’s a sham and should be culled.