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The Week in Europe By David Jessop For much of the last few weeks Europe has been in turmoil as a result of the foot and mouth epidemic that has broke out in the United Kingdom and which more recently has appeared in France, the Netherlands and Eire. The disease, which attacks sheep, cattle and other cloven footed animals has closed down enormous areas of the English countryside as it can be carried by foot or even on the tyres of cars. As a result farmers in relatively remote regions such as the British Lake District are seeing their livelihoods destroyed, quite literally, as infected animals are slaughtered while, to the horror of country and city dwellers alike, healthy animals in designated areas are being culled in an attempt to stop the disease spreading. Belatedly it has dawned on the British Government that it is not just farming that is at risk but tourism and the whole rural economy. Unfortunately many of the areas most affected by the disease are also among the most popular visitor areas. As a result it is not just farmers, but a vast array of small enterprises and the rural tourist economy that is coming close to collapse. The effects of a downturn in the fortunes of European agriculture will have resonance with banana, sugar and rice farmers in the Caribbean as will the likely cause. Why this should have happened in Britain is a small but important lesson about the impact globalisation and the related quest for the creation of larger and more efficient farming units can have. In contrast to Sweden where all farming is localised, carefully controlled and principally related to local demand, Britain has built an industry around export efficiency and global competitiveness. This in turn has meant that there are now very few abattoirs or markets. Animals have to be transported long distances if they are to be sold or slaughtered. The effect is to heighten the incidence of disease and the spread of infection with the result that outbreaks of foot and mouth have occurred in quite disparate parts of the United Kingdom. The British Government, on the verge of calling an early election, has reacted with offers of EU supported compensation for the animals lost. But so far has done nothing to address the slide into economic collapse of large areas of the rural community. How long it will be able to resist wide-ranging economic support remains to be seen. In the Caribbean, farmers and others facing economic collapse as a result of EU-led changes in trade policy would be forgiven for wondering why the EU and its member states are prepared so readily and rapidly to compensate it disadvantaged industries. The reaction of the EU to any crisis in European agriculture stands in stark contrast to the EC's unwillingness to consider the impact of recent policy decisions affecting the ACP. Just three weeks ago the European Union agreed to take forward its Everything but Arms proposal which effectively sets aside existing European agriculture regimes for Caribbean sugar, rice and bananas. EBA, as it has become known, threatens to damage terminally over time and in different ways these core Caribbean industries. It does so by offering the world's less developed countries duty free and quota free access to the European market irrespective of existing commodity arrangements for the ACP. While the region quite rightly has made clear it does not object to improved market access for the world's poorest countries it is seeking a review of the decision and has told the EU that the initiative is unilateral and violates existing trade agreements. It is arguing that quite reasonably it might expect on legal if not moral grounds that the carefully negotiated language in the Cotonou Convention would afford the region some protection up to 2008. Where this process will end is far from obvious. Belatedly and after the regulation to put the initiative into effect had been agreed, the EC accepted that there should be impact studies to assess the damage to commodity dependent ACP nations in more developed regions such as the Caribbean. It has also indicated that it is prepared to proceed with the ACP/EU Trade ministerial meeting envisaged by the Cotonou Convention and that will consider in May the impact of EBA. But even if the EU and ACP's impact studies indicate, as do the initial studies undertaken for the region, that the cost of the Initiative will be the demise of much of the Caribbean's sugar and rice industry, no one has any clear proposals as to how then to move forward. Rather the message that seems to be emerging in corridors in those European ministries that favour rapid trade liberalisation is that there may be some form of compensation and if the cost can be shared on a transatlantic basis so much the better. But what does this mean in practical terms. How does a nation like Guyana maintain stability if it were to loose its sugar and rice industry. How would Jamaica's already precarious economy survive the sudden or even gradual collapse of bananas and sugar? The truth is there can be no short-term employment substitute for agriculture. Over time in some, but not all Caribbean economies, the work force may be retired or migrated to newer industries including tourism or tourism related agriculture. But this can not be achieved without extensive, well-financed and executed social adjustment programmes. But as the Banana industry is now learning, herein lies another problem. As a part of the long term package to make the Windward banana industry better able to compete in a rapidly liberalising international market, it was agreed by the EU that there would be a special programme of assistance aimed at providing pensions for some farmers and retraining for others. Yet despite the fact that current estimates suggest that within a very short time up to half of those employed in the banana industry in the Eastern Caribbean will be out of work, there is still no sign of this much-vaunted programme. The point here is not about who should be blamed. Rather it is to note that if it is taking this long to make essential social and economic programmes work for an industry already in economic transition, how can anyone believe that further programmes for the sugar and rice industries will happen in time to avert economic collapse and political instability? It will be interesting to see how rapidly EU farmers and others in the European rural community are compensated for an act of God in comparison to Caribbean farmers who are being harmed by acts of men. David Jessop is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe. He can be contacted at [log in to unmask] March23, 2001 Dr. Amanda Sives Postdoctoral Research Fellow Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit Institute of Commonwealth Studies 28 Russell Square London, WC1B 5DS Tel: +44 0207-862-8865 Fax: +44 0207-862-8820 Website: http://www.sas.ac.uk/commonwealthstudies/