EU agricultural policy finally dispenses with export subsidies
In previous decades, export subsidies were an effective means of selling surplus agricultural products in the EU on the world market, where they were half as cheap. In the meantime, export refunds burdened the EU agricultural budget with more than €10 billion per year.
As EU and world market prices converged at a higher level, this instrument became increasingly superfluous. Expenditure on this has already been reduced to almost zero in recent years. Now the export aid for chicken meat has been formally set at zero.
However, the EU member states did not vote unanimously in favor of the deletion in the management committee on Thursday. Most recently, there was an export refund of €10.85/100kg, which was mainly used by French poultry suppliers.
Export refunds are particularly controversial due to the damage they cause to agricultural production in developing countries.
This week, the EU Commission set the export refunds for chicken meat to zero. Following this week's measure, the EU Commission declares itself free of refunds. The agricultural reform means that export aid will only be paid in the event of an extreme crisis.
