French Parasites

I've been struggling for a long time now to contain my anger at the way Tony Blair's been conducting the EU budget negotiations, not just because of the recalcitrance of parties like Poland which arrogantly insist on acting as if the aid were theirs by right rather than the coerced transfer of funds from citizens of other nations that it is, but even more so because right from the start the pusillanimous Blair seemed to take it as given that the Common Agricultural Policy was untouchable at least for now, with the most that could be hoped for being renegotiations in 2009. This Times article shows why my anger at Blair's timidity on this issue is so thoroughly justified.

FRENCH farmers were accused of holding Europe and the world to ransom yesterday after official figures obtained by The Times revealed just how far European Union subsidies are skewed in their favour.

Three times as many French farmers receive large subsidies from the EU than those of any other country. In total, France receives almost twice as much direct subsidies for its farmers as any other member state, and they are mostly channelled to large farmers rather than traditional small-scale land holders.

Despite the huge discrepancies France steadfastly refuses to countenance any reduction in farm subsidies, bringing the EU budget negotiations in Brussels and the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong, both climaxing this week, to the brink of collapse.

Dominique de Villepin, the French Prime Minister, declared yesterday that France would veto any EU budget agreement at tomorrow’s Brussels summit, or world trade deal, that entailed cutting farm subsidies before the EU’s next seven-year budget ends in 2013. “We will not accept an accord that obliges Europe to start a new reform of the Common Agricultural Policy,” he told the French Parliament.

France's farmers are the parasites of the European Union, subsidy-hungry leeches who do little more than destroy taxpayer value while ruining the livelihoods of millions of poor farmers throughout the rest of the world, yet instead of the British government demanding that they wean themselves off the EU teat, it is the French who have the temerity to insist that Britain and the rest of Europe continue to subsidize this wealthy coterie of rent-seeking layabouts. Why is it that Blair cannot bring himself to take as strong a stand as the French can and do, even when the weight of justice is so clearly on his side?

This ridiculous situation in which the French wreckers of all progress are the ones making demands and expecting them to be be met is what comes of having a government led by a Europhile who wants so strongly to be liked by the more-sophisticated continentals who supposedly lie on the other side of the Channel: had Gordon Brown and the prospect of an unwinnable referendum not managed to restrain Blair's uncritical Europhilia, we'd all be using the Euro by now and suffering the consequences of it, all in the name of not being "left behind" and isolated. Oh for the days of Margaret Thatcher and her handbag!

PS: As this article makes clear, the wealthy parasites who benefit from the CAP aren't limited to France, though wealthy Frenchmen do make up the lion's share of beneficiaries. No wonder the majority of the EU elite seems to love the lunatic CAP so much - many are on the take themselves.

Comments

[Ross]

The bottom line is that Blair is too incompetant a negotiator to get any good deal so a complete deadlock is the best that can be hoped for. There was an article by Frederick Forsyth six years ago on Blair's failings at negotiation which explains why nothing will be achieved now-

"Mr Blair permits himself two over-arching conceits. The first is to presume that he possesses a complete comprehension of the psychological mindset of his adversary..... The second conceit is to entertain the conviction that if you concede enough and go on doing so, you will generate goodwill; this can then be parlayed into 'influence' "

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_199907/ai_n8868814

[dsquared]

There is a good argument here, but can we leave the "poor farmers" out of it. The only market which has the twin characteristics a) French farmers in direct competition with Third World farmers and b) French farmers get a volume-related subsidy is sugar beet. And even in that case, it's mainly Brazilian and Australian producers that lose out. The CAP is a bad idea because it wastes too much money, not that it has baleful effects on the Third World. Oxfam et al really do need to get a grip on themselves here; it takes quite a lot of mercantilist ideology before you can look at an African economy and say to yourself "know what the problem is in this place? they need more expensive food".

Btw, Blair isn't keen on CAP reform because the issue is massively obviously linked to the UK rebate, which we don't want to give up (basically we want the current state of affairs to continue in which Germany pays the bills).

I'd be more inclined to believe that people's hatred of French farmers was based on economics rather than Francphobia if we heard even a quarter as much about American cotton producers, whose lobbying is far more destructive to poor countries.

[Abiola]

"The only market which has the twin characteristics a) French farmers in direct competition with Third World farmers and b) French farmers get a volume-related subsidy is sugar beet."

If you really believe this I suggest you brush up a bit on your knowledge of African agriculture, as I can tell you from first-hand experience that subsidized European food pushed a lot more than sugar out of the marketplace when I was growing up.

"it takes quite a lot of mercantilist ideology before you can look at an African economy and say to yourself "know what the problem is in this place? they need more expensive food"."

Yeah, just ignore all those farmers out in the African countryside when doing your calculations ...

"Btw, Blair isn't keen on CAP reform because the issue is massively obviously linked to the UK rebate, which we don't want to give up (basically we want the current state of affairs to continue in which Germany pays the bills)."

Which is why he's already surrendering a third of it without getting anything from France? I don't buy this in the slightest. And why on earth should the British want to foot the bills for other European nations' citizens anyway?

"I'd be more inclined to believe that people's hatred of French farmers was based on economics rather than Francphobia if we heard even a quarter as much about American cotton producers, whose lobbying is far more destructive to poor countries."

Believe whatever you want, I don't care - I'm just as free to believe that your attempt to mitigate the awfulness of this disgusting agricultural policy is borne of Europhilia, anti-Americanism and opposition to free markets, with just as much evidence in my favor as you do in yours. I loathe the CAP with a passion, and I especially resent the fact that the taxpayers of other nations are being made to subsidize the French obsession with this monstrosity, which at least isn't the case with the United States. The United States isn't the party promising to wreck the ongoing Hong Kong talks if the issue of agricultural subsidies continues to be pressed, but why let that get in your way of a semi-apologia for European wastefulness, French greed and a spot of America-bashing?

[Andrew]

"I especially resent the fact that the taxpayers of other nations are being made to subsidize the French obsession with this monstrosity, which at least isn't the case with the United States."

Not sure why this is worse than inter-state subsidies in the U.S. or indeed any government subsidy - I just saw today that half of all U.S. farm subsidies go to 5% of congressional districts. Should a Briton whose taxes subsidize French farmers be more resentful than an urban New Yorker whose taxes subsidize cotton farmers in South Carolina?

[dsquared]

[as I can tell you from first-hand experience that subsidized European food pushed a lot more than sugar out of the marketplace when I was growing up.]

I think that you had probably done most of your growing up by 2003, which was when the last round of CAP reforms take place.

[Abiola]

"Not sure why this is worse than inter-state subsidies in the U.S. or indeed any government subsidy"

Er, because Americans share a common nationality and Europeans don't?

"Should a Briton whose taxes subsidize French farmers be more resentful than an urban New Yorker whose taxes subsidize cotton farmers in South Carolina?"

Of course. Britain and France aren't part of a common nation, with all that implies in terms of bonds of mutual obligation. British taxpayers will lose their right to be annoyed at parasitical French farmers picking their pockets just as soon as they obtain the right to vote in French presidential and parliamentary elections.

"I think that you had probably done most of your growing up by 2003, which was when the last round of CAP reforms take place."

And you completely ignore the possibility that the reason African farmers might not currently be competing with their European counterparts in the production of many items might just be because they've learned the hard way that certain food items have no hope of being sold at a profit wherever subsidized Europeans are active. The only reason cotton is notable is that it's one of the few sectors in which African growers still have a prayer in the face of gluttonous subsidies, not because that's all they're good at.

[dsquared]

[Yeah, just ignore all those farmers out in the African countryside when doing your calculations ...]

Isn't this exactly the sort of impressionistic intuition that you usually don't like when it comes to economics? In anything other than bizarre circumstances an export subsidy generates a small deadweight loss combined with a net transfer to overseas. A subsidy/tariff regime would be a disbenefit to overseas producers but under the EBA regime (since 2002), LDCs are allowed access to European markets on member state terms[1]. I note with slight horror that the word "exports" is not mentioned at all in Mas-Collel according to amazon "search inside" and Romer's textbook doesn't have an international section either, but there really are rigorous proofs of these things in existence.

[1]In fairness, Nigeria isn't on the list yet, but there is no tariff on cocoa or rubber anyway.

[Abiola]

"Isn't this exactly the sort of impressionistic intuition that you usually don't like when it comes to economics?"

It is nowhere nearly as "impressionistic" as your manifestly bogus claim that food subsidies are a net benefit to Africans.

"I note with slight horror that the word "exports" is not mentioned at all in Mas-Collel according to amazon "search inside" and Romer's textbook doesn't have an international section either, but there really are rigorous proofs of these things in existence."

When you can dig up these "proofs" and show them in application in the real world, get back to me. Until then I'm sticking to my position: the net damage done to domestic farmers in poor countries by subsidized Western agriculture outweighs the benefits obtained by the urbanites from said cheap food.

[Andrew]

"British taxpayers will lose their right to be annoyed at parasitical French farmers picking their pockets just as soon as they obtain the right to vote in French presidential and parliamentary elections."

If I haven't misunderstood the way the EU works (which is quite possible), aren't decisions on EU subsidies made by an EU-wide body like the European Commission or something like that? The French president and parliament only have power over the CAP insofar as they exert influence over the results of negotiations in the EU. If this is correct, it's rather more analogous to the way New Yorkers have no vote in South Carolinan House and Senate elections (and it's these Congressmen who end up having the negotiating power to impose subsidies). [The main difference being that everyone gets to vote for the president, who has veto power over subsidies.]

"Britain and France aren't part of a common nation, with all that implies in terms of bonds of mutual obligation. "

I wouldn't have thought I'd hear a libertarian talking about bonds of mutual obligation... (national defense sure; farm subsidies not so much.)

[Abiola]

"The French president and parliament only have power over the CAP insofar as they exert influence over the results of negotiations in the EU."

No, they have the power of veto to freeze current arrangements in place.

"If this is correct, it's rather more analogous to the way New Yorkers have no vote in South Carolinan House and Senate elections"

Since when have South Carolinians had the power to veto the entire US budget if their subsidies get cut? In any case, as I've already pointed out, Britain and France are not one nation, and god-willing, they never will be.

"I wouldn't have thought I'd hear a libertarian talking about bonds of mutual obligation"

Tell me where on earth I've ever pretended to be an anarcho-capitalist, which is what you seem to be equating "libertarian" with.

[dsquared]

[And you completely ignore the possibility that the reason African farmers might not currently be competing with their European counterparts in the production of many items might just be because they've learned the hard way that certain food items have no hope of being sold at a profit wherever subsidized Europeans are active]

Abiola, this is hopelessly unrigorous and again is exactly the kind of thing that you don't tolerate when applied to domestic microeconomics. Africa does, in fact, export lots of food to the UK; have a look at the labels next time you're in Tescos. There are very few food markets in which European producers are subsidised on an output basis; in most crops they are actually paid to take extremely efficient European farmland out of production. The reason that African producers can't export milk products to the EU, for example, has nothing at all to do with tariffs and subsidies and everything to do with the fact that New Zealand has year-round pasture.

African farms have a comparative advantage in growing cotton and value-added vegetables. They don't have a comparative advantage in grains or milk (and they will have even less of an advantage in grains if the EU crumbles to US pressure on genetically modified foods), or in coffee since the Vietnamese set up. They have an absolute advantage in growing cocoa, rubber and palm oil.

One would expect that there would be comparatively few crops in which African and European producers competed head-to-head because Africa is at a different latitude from Europe. It is actually surprising that Zimbabwe exports haricots verts to Europe and this happens because labour is very cheap in Zimbabwe and prepared green beans are a labour-intensive crop, but they do. The only reason that there was ever competition between European and African farmers was under the completely broken pre-1999 subsidy regime, which is no longer there.

[Andrew]

"Tell me where on earth I've ever pretended to be an anarcho-capitalist, which is what you seem to be equating "libertarian" with."

That's not what I meant - see my qualifier at the end of the sentence. Isn't the libertarian position that the bonds of mutual obligation that rationalize the existence of the state extend only to a "night watchman state," not farm subsidies?

[Abiola]

"They don't have a comparative advantage in grains or milk (and they will have even less of an advantage in grains if the EU crumbles to US pressure on genetically modified foods), or in coffee since the Vietnamese set up"

If you'd said just milk you'd have had a point (at least for as long as GM technology doesn't get around to conquering trypanosomiasis), but with grains you're out and out wrong. Africa isn't all or even mostly high-rainfall, high humidity jungle, and the savannahs make for excellent places for growing cereals. As for the EU taking some sort of magic lead with GM, you seem to take it for granted that Africans won't also avail themselves of its benefits, when in reality the biggest obstacle to their doing so right now is their fear of being blocked from EU markets - witness the Zambian food aid crisis not so long ago. Even your point on Vietnam is a shaky one - if that country continues on its growth trajectory, it won't be long before its labor becomes too pricy for coffee-growing to remain viable.

"One would expect that there would be comparatively few crops in which African and European producers competed head-to-head because Africa is at a different latitude from Europe."

An issue which is being rendered moot by advances in biotechnology, advances the Europeans are at the forefront of obstructing.

Finally, one last point: when I speak of "poor countries", I don't use the term as a euphemism for "Africa", and if you're going to argue that EU subsidies aren't so bad, the least you can do is acknowledge those other countries as well.

[dsquared]

[When you can dig up these "proofs" and show them in application in the real world, get back to me. Until then I'm sticking to my position: the net damage done to domestic farmers in poor countries by subsidized Western agriculture outweighs the benefits obtained by the urbanites from said cheap food.]

Please, Abiola, this is just painful to watch. This is basic Ricardian trade. You are a representative agent in an economy. You are making decisions about what to produce and consume. You can produce widgets at a cost of X. You can buy imported widgets at a cost of X-1. Why does it make a difference whether imported widgets cost less because of subsidies or because foreign widgeteers are more efficient? If there were no EU subsidies at all to the milk industry, New Zealand would still be there. So the correct thing to do is not produce widgets but produce some other commodity instead. Like value-added vegetables or cocoa or something else in which you have a comparative advantage (and under very general conditions, there will *always* be a good in which you have a comparative advantage).

The key point here is that there is no exception to the general theorems of Ricardian trade for "except when overseas producers are subsidised". Any argument that subsidised overseas producers damage welfare is going to generalise to an argument that more efficient overseas producers are bad for domestic welfare, and thence to a generalised argument for protectionism. If you want to make this argument go ahead but it will fit in very poorly with the rest of your economic beliefs.

[dsquared]

[Africa isn't all or even mostly high-rainfall, high humidity jungle, and the savannahs make for excellent places for growing cereals]

Kansas is even better, particularly if you are able to invest in the kind of kit that farmers out there have. Cambridgeshire is also very efficient and it has the advantage of not being thousands of miles away and having good road and rail links.

All the rest of the things you're talking about are just examples of the ebb and flow of comparative advantage which is normally considered a good thing. You'll notice that whether or not African producers have a comparative advantage in coffee is not dependent on EU policy because there is no tariff on coffee imports; that's kind of the general point I'm making.

[Finally, one last point: when I speak of "poor countries", I don't use the term as a euphemism for "Africa", and if you're going to argue that EU subsidies aren't so bad, the least you can do is acknowledge those other countries as well.]

I'll do better than that; here's a list of them (scroll down)

http://europa.eu.int/comm/trade/issues/global/gsp/eba/ug.htm

[Jim]

"Not sure why this is worse than inter-state subsidies in the U.S. or indeed any government subsidy"

Er, because Americans share a common nationality and Europeans don't?"

Pretty lame; the principle is exactly the same. So when the farm lobby forces polluting ethanol on California in an energy bill, do you really think people there think "Well, never mind; it's for the good of the nation"? Nationality is an artificial construct, especially in the case of a propositional nation, and a farm /energy bill that benefits what are after all a bunch of Germans in Iowa has nothing at all to recommend it in California.

[Abiola]

"Please, Abiola, this is just painful to watch. This is basic Ricardian trade."

Silly me for thinking the world had moved beyond the simplistic Ricardian trade model in the last 150 years, and even sillier of me to refuse to ignore the distributional effects of agricultural subsidies by pretending that the marginal subjective benefit of cheaper food to urbanites is equal to the marginal subjective cost of lost income to their poorer rural cousins. The fact is that you aren't making an argument that I haven't seen presented better elsewhere before:

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/002074.html

Yes, by all means let's endorse a trade policy which ends up boosting the prosperity of the Third World middle classes at the expense of their much more numerous poorer co-citizens, as long as the net dollar amount looks positive; are you next going to be pushing for the abolition of capital gains and income taxes in favor of a sales tax on all goods and services?

"Kansas is even better, particularly if you are able to invest in the kind of kit that farmers out there have."

If that's true, why do they need subsidies then? Why isn't all food grown in the United States and Europe? Oh, I know, maybe it has something to do with that ol' "comparative advantage" thingamajig in that thar' Ricardian model of yours I'm supposedly ignorant of. Besides, we can also take it as a given that new roads and rail lines will never ever be constructed in poor countries to meet demands for faster times to market, while agricultural products can never be flown or rapidly shipped to foreign countries to meet time-sensitive demands; one has only to look at the stagnant cost of air freight over the last few decades to see that this is a pipe dream, right?

"Cambridgeshire is also very efficient and it has the advantage of not being thousands of miles away and having good road and rail links."

Which must be why Britain has been a net importer of food for at least a century ...

"Pretty lame; the principle is exactly the same."

Is it also "lame" when the tax dollars of Californians go to subsidize the FBI and CIA costs of Kansans, or New Yorkers are disportionately taxed to support scientific research from which all Americans benefit? Bash subsidies all you like and you'll have my support, but don't try to pretend that there's no difference between subsidizing your fellow citizens and being made to do the same for foreigners.

"Nationality is an artificial construct, especially in the case of a propositional nation"

I'll make sure to tell the Selective Service that the next time I'm in town and they send me a draft eligibility notice ...

[Jim]

but don't try to pretend that there's no difference between subsidizing your fellow citizens and being made to do the same for foreigners.

"Nationality is an artificial construct, especially in the case of a propositional nation"

I'll make sure to tell the Selective Service that the next time I'm in town and they send me a draft eligibility notice ...

People are "fellow citizens" by an act of Congress, a state at a time, or by a keystroke at the CIS office. And it isn't just fellow Americans who benefit from subsidized research in New York or California.

You get draft eligibility notices? So you must have naturalized, because you weren't a natural citizen. But I get your point. Do you get mine, that these constructs, however solid they seem, have only the solidity the public gives them?

Bashing subsidies - where do I start? How about that huge and crucial subsidy to the worldwide petroleum industry called the (US, since Europe does f**k all to ensure supplies of its own oil)Department of Defense budget? Let's abolish tariffs on vegetables from Africa and US-subsidized sea freight rates and see where the market settles out. Here's my guess - Europeans want and buy the vegetables, at least in the off months. Production rises, and so do prices at home, but wages rise too, and everyone at home has more vegetables.

BTW, I am not anti-American, and even I think the cotton tariffs in the US are about as defensible as Japanese protections on medium-grain rice. Then again, why would a Californian be as sentimental about protecting the heritage of King Cotton as a Southerner might be...

[dsquared]

[Besides, we can also take it as a given that new roads and rail lines will never ever be constructed in poor countries to meet demands for faster times to market, while agricultural products can never be flown or rapidly shipped to foreign countries to meet time-sensitive demands; one has only to look at the stagnant cost of air freight over the last few decades to see that this is a pipe dream, right?]

Abiola, I don't quite understand what you're saying here. It looks like your saying that despite the fact that Africa produces cocoa, coffee, copra, palm oil, coal and tobacco, the reason that there isn't a decent transcontinental road or railway is that it would only be economic if they could break into the European markets for rice and sugar beet. But that can't be right.

Otherwise you're just making the same point as I am; Africa exports a lot of food to the EU because, sensibly, its producers compete in products which are not subsidised and where they have a comparative advantage. In which case, it is hard to see how the tariffs are hurting African producers.

There are all sorts of New Trade models extending the basic Ricardian one (Krugman has done many fine ones) but your own implied proposal that what Africa really needs is to be further into grains and sugar production (two notoriously volatile commodities, with low value density) is very unlikely to be supported by any of them.

Has there been any case anywhere at any time in history where development was accompanied by rising food prices? I certainly can't think of one.

[dsquared]

(I'd add that it's simply not true that the distributional effects of food subsidies are simply "urban/rural" - people in cocoa-growing regions eat imported grains and even people in food-producing areas can benefit from imported sugar or milk)

[Jim]

"Has there been any case anywhere at any time in history where development was accompanied by rising food prices? I certainly can't think of one."

Can you disambiguate this for me a bit? Do you mean development for the food producers? Then I can think of examples of that - the Wheat Belt in the US is one. The Corn Belt is another, I guess. Food is just another cash crop if you are a farmer. Do you mean rising food prices for the industrial workers in developing countries? Their costs certainly rise, so much so that these prices motivate increased food production in colonies. Ireland before and during the Victorian period is an example, first for wheat and then for beef.

[dsquared]

I mean rising food prices overall in a country which is undergoing development (by which I suppose I mean industrialisation). I don't think Ireland counts so much as wheat and beef were export crops rather than part of the domestic consumption bundle, and colonies are something of a special case, although this was a good spot and it can probably be argued both ways.

[radek]

I think Daniel's right on this one. Both the theory and the empirics support the view that the European subsidies are mostly harmful to EU consumers and not to poor countries in general - two weeks ago or so I read a paper which tried to estimate the whole shabang and after reading this thread tried finding it to cite but it's lost in my general pile of junk at the moment (may have been NBER or some other working paper)(which is why I didn't peep in until now, having given up on finding it). It did point out that most rural residents of poor countries still benefit, seeing as how 1)given the Engel curve low food prices matter a lot and 2) for any given country the export sector that gets hurt by subsidies is generally very small.

Anyway, it is weird to see Abiola arguing this. It is pretty standard trade theory - and not just the Ricardian model, same is true for Hecksher-Ohlin or most New Trade Models (which anyway, mostly have to do with rich country to rich country trade). Even in a somewhat convoluted Bhagwati 'immiserizing growth' or infant industry type of models where shitty comperative advantage can get locked in and hurt things in long run, it's usually the opposite story - the subsidies are to capital intensive manufactures. So yeah it's probably possible to give a sound theoretical reasons (i.e. ones which avoid the usual fallacies that hanger around any discussion of international trade) why the subsidies might hurt Third World farmers but it would be a very 'special case', 'lots of crazy assumptions' one.
Not that Daniel should get a cookie for this one either. Both of you are being pretty damn intellectually inconsistent. I mean, if you're gonna push the Ricardian model then you're pretty much a free trader, no bones about it.

Oh yeah, and as far as Mas-Collel goes, it's there, it's just presented as a more general case (since there's really nothing about either the Ricardian model or the HO that says it has to be between nations). They do say at some point that this is the standard trade model.

Also, the new EU countries, such as Poland, apparantly put more into the CAP then they get out of it (Daniel Drezner's got the link) - though I'm actually a bit sceptical about this and I know that's not exactly what was meant in the original post.

[Abiola]

"even people in food-producing areas can benefit from imported sugar or milk"

Most black Africans are lactose intolerant, and as such European dairy products are by and large useless to them.

"Anyway, it is weird to see Abiola arguing this. It is pretty standard trade theory"

Note that my point is *not* that the net income effect is negative, but that these subsidies have a redistributive effect whose harm to the rural dwellers who still make up 60% of all Africans outweighs the benefit obtained by more affluent urbanites. This is hardly so difficult to appreciate: if I take $1 from a beggar, add my own $0.50 to it and then give it to the local surgeon who has no intention of sharing it, would you really claim that I'd improved the welfare of the two of them in aggregate?

"Also, the new EU countries, such as Poland, apparantly put more into the CAP then they get out of it (Daniel Drezner's got the link) - though I'm actually a bit sceptical about this and I know that's not exactly what was meant in the original post"

What's really at issue is that under Blair's current proposals Poland stands to obtain massive sums of money after its contributions are netted out, and yet is *still* holding out for more money as if it were a matter of right.

[VH]

Thanks anyways for the links and I'm surprised you like my fellow Flemish Bach-artist Herreweghe too ;-)

The biggest scandal about the EU budget is not that the CAP favorizes the French so much (well that too) but that it eats up HALF of the EU budget.
(http://vhfc.blogspot.com/2005/12/eu-can-do-with-half-its-budget.html)

Now we can think of many things that can be done with that budget, but why throw it to 2-3% of the population that can't compete in the global market anyways? In Flanders (and Holland) we have quite competitive flower-growing farmers. They don't catch any subsidies, and they’re doing quite well.

A quick look at the table of the top 100 recipients of agricultural subsidies in Belgium offers a sweet surprise. Luxury chocolates and truffles multinational manufacturer Godiva (also Neuhaus) from Brussels received a delicious €193,047 from the EU pork barrels in 2004. What's next? Subsidize Armani?
(http://www.farmsubsidy.org/index.php?cmd=sumcon&c=BE&m=top100)