Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
Sounds like not a bad deal for the French or us, all the while preserving German hegemony.
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The point was that France would feed Germany, and Germany would pay (handsomely) for it. The formula that works out agricultural payments was devised with that in mind - that’s why it continues to work so well for France and why it doesn’t work so well for us, and why France was supportive (at the time) of the rebate. It wasn’t in their interests to have a British PM with British interests at heart, rocking the boat too hard in favour of CAP reform.
Enter Tony Blair of course and all bets were off - the French (rightly) deduced that Blair was such a Europhile they could screw some more money out of the U.K. by reducing the rebate, in return for some extremely vague words designed to suggest they might agree to talk about minor CAP reform at some point in the future.
Our rebate was reduced, with Blair’s agreement, and the CAP continues pretty much unchanged. Happily, from March the U.K. can begin devising a system of agricultural support that works for the British economy and the British environment.