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Subject:

week in europe 23 March

From:

Amanda Sives <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Amanda Sives <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 2 Apr 2001 13:06:45 +0100

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Parts/Attachments

text/plain (129 lines)

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/

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