Dec 7, 2005 - East Anglia Daily Times:
The problem with fudge
In recent weeks Brussels, London and Geneva seem to have been overrun by fudge, or rather fudges.
Whether it is the reform of the sugar regime, the shambolic
handling of the EU budget or Peter Mandelson's dark arts in world
trade negotiations, there seems to me to be more fudging going on than ever
before.
The attempt to try to please everyone by blurring boundaries,
saying one thing and doing another, has ended up creating a situation
of confusion and instability which benefits no one.
It is not surprising
that politicians are not trusted when it is so hard to know who
to believe.
I have stood up for East Anglian sugar producers in
the European Parliament, not because the sugar regime doesn't need
reforming, but because it is clear to anyone who knows about farming that
these proposals were not thought through.
We risk losing a valuable industry
with thousands of jobs in our region for no good reason.
Agriculture
Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel told me that she would, if necessary,
sit on Mandelson's knee until she'd got a fair deal for European
farmers.
Then suddenly she announced what the reforms would be
before the Parliament had had time to vote on its report.
Rather
than having an open debate about it, as we did in the Agriculture
Committee, EU Governments met in secret to hammer out a deal.
The EU always gets blamed for being undemocratic but it
is our Governments who keep it that way.
What is the point of having an
Agriculture Committee if it is ignored?
Maybe the Commissioner
should spend less time on New Labour knees and listen to experts
instead.
Tony Blair came to the Parliament in June and gave a brilliant
speech about how Europe needed to change, modernise and rise to
the challenges of the twenty-first century.
The rebate wouldn't go anywhere
he said, unless the French agreed to reform their inefficient agriculture
sector.
And then last week he wandered round Eastern Europe trying
to explain why he was giving away much of the rebate and cutting
funding to the EU's poorest members.
Nice one Tony.
Meanwhile his old friend Peter Mandelson has been spinning
himself into a frenzy.
To Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) campaigning
for "trade
justice" he says he is "a NGO man through and through", to business he is
pro-free trade, and then last week in the Agriculture Committee
he said he was pro-agriculture.
I've been working with him for
over a year and I still am no closer to knowing what he actually
believes.
Say what you like about Margaret Thatcher but at least
you knew what she thought.
I don't pretend these problems are easily
solved.
Clever people are working very hard to find solutions,
nor do I doubt any of their good intentions.
The fact of the matter
is however, that what everyone wants: a fair deal on sugar, the
budget and world trade talks, are being lost in a sea of fudge.
