Sunday, April 29, 2012

Amid the wreckage

Alexander Stubb, Finland's EU affairs minister, is quoted in the Financial Times as saying. 'The worry I have in the whole European debate - and we have seen it in the French presidential elections, we see it in the Netherlands, we have also seen it in Finland - is that some fundamentals of European integration are under attack. They include Schengen, the ECB, the euro, the internal market and trade policy. And you know, if we take them away, what's left?

The short and unfortunate answer is the Common Agricultural Policy which still dominates the EU's budget. There is a certain irony in the possibility that among the wreckage of European policies, the CAP would be left standing. Arguably it is the most dysfunctional of the EU's policies.

Stubb, by the way, is a self-confessed EU nerd. Intrigued by his English-sounding name, I found that he went to high school in Daytona Beach, Florida, took his first degree in the States and has a PhD from LSE. Read more here: Stubb

1 comment:

Britta english übersetzer said...

The Common Agricultural Policy is the cancer in the European Union.
Remove the absurd subsidies and EU will become a more healthy organisation.