Speech by EU Commissioner Fischer Boel - EU Agricultural Policy: working for development

Summary: Speech by EU Commissioner Fischer Boel - EU Agricultural Policy: working for development (21 November 2005: Rome)

Speech by Mariann Fischer Boel, Member of the European Commission responsible for Agriculture and rural development, Conference by Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome

"EU agriculture policy: working for development"

Chairman, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I'm grateful for the opportunity to address this FAO conference for the first time as the European Union's Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development.

Let me start by offering my congratulations to Director-General Jacques Diouf for his re-election to his post. He can rely on the full support of myself and my colleagues in his ongoing work of fighting hunger around the world in the years ahead and in his important task of reforming the organisation.

Hunger and poverty have often been in the headlines over the last year, whether in connection with natural disasters, civil conflicts or multilateral trade talks.

And the latest figures published by the FAO leave us no room to be complacent. Although there are fewer people now than in 1990 who have too little to eat or who live under the breadline, our progress in improving living standards has not been as quick as we would like - especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

These problems, and the challenge of finding a remedy, have not been forgotten in the EU. Let me assure you of that today.

The Strategic Partnership Agreement which the EU and the FAO signed last year will strengthen our long-standing co-operation in attacking poverty and hunger head-on.

And when it comes to financial support for development work, the EU will continue to back up its words with money.

In 2004, the European Commission became the largest donor to the FAO's extra-budgetary fund, contributing €47 million. More generally, the Commission and EU member states together form the world's largest provider of development aid, and we intend to raise our total contribution to 0.7% of our economic output by 2015. That would mean an annual aid budget of €90 billion by that year.

Aid is one ingredient of the recipe for lifting countries out of poverty. Another, of course, is trade. And here also, the EU's credentials are much stronger than many admit. We import more agricultural goods from developing countries than do the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand together.

And no developed country outside the EU matches our Everything But Arms commitment, which provides for free access for all non-military goods to the European Market from the Least Developed Countries.

Awareness of the needs of weaker economies is a principle that we wish to keep at the heart of the WTO Doha Round, which has of course been taking up much of my time in recent weeks.

I believe that the Doha Round can genuinely be a tool for giving poorer countries a bigger stake in global trade - for making trade work for them.

But that can happen only if we keep it clearly in our minds that the Doha Round is a "development" round.

Among other things, that means that developed countries must follow the EU's lead in allowing special and differential treatment for less prosperous countries whose agricultural economies would be harmed if they opened up too quickly.

It also means that indirect forms of export subsidy such as food aid in kind should come under the microscope. We think such aid is appropriate only as an exception, not as the rule.

Our fundamental shake-up of the Common Agricultural Policy has allowed us to offer to abolish our export refunds. This will remove a lot of the obstacles that hinder developing countries from being present with their products on the world market. We wait for our trading partners to be as ambitious on their special export instruments.

We also await more realism and balance in the agricultural talks. Some of the demands made of the EU over market access have been the stuff of political fantasy. Let's work in the world of the possible.

Ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues and I are working hard to bring the Doha Round to a successful conclusion. But we should not deceive ourselves that this would wave a magic wand to eradicate hunger and poverty from our planet.

To benefit from trade, a country must have sound infrastructure, strong institutions, stable government. Developing these where they are not already in place takes generous financial assistance, expertise, persistence and time. The struggle to help the poor and hungry of the world will continue long after the end of this WTO round.

You can rely on the EU's ongoing full commitment to that struggle.

Thank you for your attention.

Ref: SP05-307EN
EU source: European Commission
UN forum:
Date: 21/11/2005

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