{"id":371,"date":"2004-05-23T01:53:47","date_gmt":"2004-05-23T08:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stefangeens.com\/?p=371"},"modified":"2004-05-23T01:53:47","modified_gmt":"2004-05-23T08:53:47","slug":"decrying-spilt-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/2004\/05\/decrying-spilt-milk\/","title":{"rendered":"Decrying spilt milk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nnipp22.jpg\"The British and Irish are censoring this film on account of the nipple<\/a>. Ranting about their prudishness is something the Brits and Hibernians excel at all by themselves, which lessens the incentive for the rest of us, so I will refrain from doing so in this post.<\/span>The opening montage of an EU-sponsored film advertisement encouraging voter participation in the upcoming European elections depicts an infant trying to decide whether to suckle from the mother’s left breast or right breast. The message: “You’ve been voting since you were born: don’t stop now – European parliament elections, 10th of June.”<\/p>\n

If I understand the metaphor correctly, we the European electorate are a helpless hungry infant. The EU is a plentiful bosom. Election day is feeding time. We’re allowed to choose between a lunge to the left or a lurch the right. Either way, the result is the exact same pap.<\/p>\n

Shouldn’t the advertising geniuses behind such campaigns run their work by even just some mild cynics? Are these admirably high levels of truth in advertising really a good idea for get-out-the-vote campaigns?<\/p>\n

What really matters in this EU election — nay, the only issue worth casting one’s vote for — is how and when we get that evil monstrosity of a Common Agricultural Policy to stop monopolizing an entire teat. It should be shot with a silver bullet and impaled with a wooden spike and forever be prevented from sucking the livelihood out of developing countries with whom we pretend to trade fairly.<\/p>\n

Almost half of the EU’s total budget is wasted on CAP; this is far more important an issue than bickering about which political philosophy should dictate the allocation of the remainderI’ve ranted<\/a> about CAP before<\/a> so I will spare you the details this time round.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Imagine my delight then, when my favorite Swedish politician, the liberal FolkPartiet’s Mauricio RojasI’ve blogged Rojas here<\/a>.<\/span>, this week published<\/a> a workable, concrete proposal<\/a> for eliminating CAP over a three-year period. Unfortunately, it is in Swedish. Fortunately, I speak bad Swedish, and need all the practice I can get, so I have decided to translate into English the nine main points that outline the plan, both as my homework and as my contribution to humanity for today.<\/p>\n

1. EU:s gemensamma jordbrukspolitik avskaffas omedelbart i alla dess delar. Full frihandel med jordbruksprodukter inf\u00f6rs, tulltariffer och kvotrestriktioner avskaffas, priserna avregleras, direkta producentsubsidier tas bort och alla exportsubsidier upph\u00f6r.<\/em><\/p>\n

CAP is abolished immediately in its entirety. Completely free trade in agricultural goods is introduced; tariffs and quotas are eliminated, prices are deregulated, and direct producer- and export subsidies are abolished.<\/p>\n

2. Enda undantaget till tullfriheten \u00e4r de jordbruksprodukter som framst\u00e4lls i eller exporteras fr\u00e5n andra l\u00e4nder med hj\u00e4lp av subsidier. I s\u00e5dana fall kan EU ta en kompensatorisk tullavgift.<\/em><\/p>\n

The only exception to this free trade regime is for those agricultural goods produced in or exported from other countries with the help of subsidies. In such cases, the EU can impose compensatory customs tariffs.<\/p>\n

3. Under en tre\u00e5rsperiod f\u00e5r jordbrukarna och agroindustrin i de gamla EU-l\u00e4nderna \u00e5rliga omst\u00e4llningssubsidier motsvarande subsidieniv\u00e5n f\u00f6r 2001-2002.<\/em><\/p>\n

During a three-year period, farmers and agribusinesses in the old EU are eligible to receive annual transition subsidies commensurate with their level of subsidies during 2001-2002.<\/p>\n

4. F\u00f6r de nya EU-l\u00e4nderna omvandlas nuvarande infasningsprogram till ett tre\u00e5rigt omst\u00e4llningsprogram. Subsidierna i detta program ska vara likv\u00e4rdiga med de i \u00f6vriga unionen. Utg\u00e5ngspunkten f\u00f6r subsidierna blir de faktiska produktionsniv\u00e5erna 2001-2002.<\/em><\/p>\n

For new EU countries, the current phase-in program is converted into a three-year transition program. Subsidies for this program are made equivalent to those for the rest of the EU. Subsidy levels are set according to 2001-2002 production levels.<\/p>\n

5. Jordbrukare som helt och h\u00e5llet vill l\u00e4mna jordbruksn\u00e4ringen f\u00e5r under tre \u00e5r kompensation f\u00f6r f\u00f6rlorade inkomster.<\/em><\/p>\n

Farmers who want to stop farming completely are eligible to receive compensation for lost income during a three-year period.<\/p>\n

6. Ett skuldsaneringsprogram inr\u00e4ttas f\u00f6r att med offentligt finansierade medel kunna hantera de eventuella skuldproblem som en f\u00f6rv\u00e4ntad v\u00e4rdeminskning p\u00e5 mark och fastigheter kan ge upphov till.<\/em><\/p>\n

A debt-restructuring (relief?) program is established using public finances to handle eventual debt problems that an expected reduction in the value of farmland and real estate may cause.<\/p>\n

7. Tredje v\u00e4rldens producenter som eventuellt drabbas av f\u00f6rlorade importpreferenser kompenseras fullt ut under en period av tre \u00e5r.<\/em><\/p>\n

Producers from developing countries who are affected by lost import preferences are compensated in full for a period of three years.<\/p>\n

8. En tillf\u00e4llig omst\u00e4llnings-, kompensations- och skuldsaneringsfond inr\u00e4ttas p\u00e5 EU-niv\u00e5 f\u00f6r att hantera eventuella krav p\u00e5 kompensation och omst\u00e4llningsst\u00f6d enligt punkterna ovan. Fonden ska huvudsakligen finansieras med EU-medel motsvarande GJP:s nuvarande kostnader.<\/em><\/p>\n

A temporary transition-, compensation- and debt-restructuring (relief?) fund is established to handle the need for compensation and transition support as outlined in the preceding points. This fund will primarily be financed with EU monies corresponding to the CAPs current cost.<\/p>\n

9. Jordbruksrelaterade forskningsinsatser, utbildning och annan service samt allt st\u00f6d till jordbrukarna relaterat till mark- och landskapsv\u00e5rd blir en nationellt beslutad och finansierad angel\u00e4genhet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Agriculture-oriented research, education and other services, as well as all subsidies to farmers for farm- and land management, are decided and financed at the national level, France and Poland are you listening?<\/p>\n

Well, maybe Rojas didn’t quite put the last point that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The British and Irish are censoring this film on account of the nipple. Ranting about their prudishness is something the Brits and Hibernians excel at all by themselves, which lessens the incentive for the rest of us, so I will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-economics","category-sweden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7eNhC-5Z","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stefangeens.com\/2001-2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}