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Contributions from
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Monitor
How UN missions impact
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Trade liberalisation has
born little fruit
Conference: “E-Learning
Africa 2006”
Wieczorek-Zeul and
Morales meet
Solidarity and productivity
Debate on debt relief
AIDS medication:
progress with provision
Bird flu: EU increases
export subsidies
A new role for the IMF
05/2006
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[ News ]
Bird flu: EU increases export subsidies
At the end of March, the European Commission significantly increased subsidies for exporting chicken from EU countries. This move was meant to increase exports in order compensate for the drop in European demand since the outbreak of avian flu. At the time of the decision, the EU was storing more than 200,000 tonnes of chicken meat in refrigerated warehouses. Germany’s Protestant Church Development Service (EED) severely criticised the step. Rudolf Buntzel, the EED’s agriculture expert said: “Once again, we Europeans are solving our problems at the expense of the poor.” The Commission is primarily targeting markets in the Middle East, but according to the EED, previous experience shows that, sooner or later, some deep-frozen meat will be sold at rock-bottom prices in Africa. West-African producers, however, are already at risk from avian flu. “Cheap imported chicken from Europe further aggravates their desperate situation,” said Francisco Mari, EED expert on West Africa. Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, a German Social Democrat and Member of the European Parliament, similarly condemned the export subsidies as “totally anachronistic” and detrimental to agriculture in developing countries.
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