EU Tobacco Producers Seek Subsidies To 2013
2008.11.06. 12:58:05EU Tobacco Producers Seek Subsidies To 2013
2008.11.06.
Eight major European tobacco producers will ask the European Union"s farm commissioner to extend existing subsidies to the sector until 2013, Italy"s agriculture minister said on Tuesday.
EU tobacco subsidies are due to be scrapped in 2010. "Eight big countries are more than ever convinced of the need to extend the current support schemes envisaged for the sector till 2013," Italy"s Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia said in a statement.
He was speaking after a meeting with ministries and sector representatives from Bulgaria, Greece, France, Poland, Romania, Spain and Hungary.
Italy is Europe"s leading tobacco producer, accounting for 37 percent of tobacco delivered to processors in 2007, the agriculture ministry statement said.
Scrapping subsidies would hit the sector, thousands of people working for it and undermine development of rural areas, the statement said.
Instead, tobacco growing countries would propose to EU Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel a partial decoupling of the sector subsidies until 2013.
"(This) solution ... would allow us to avoid severe consequences ... mainly... where the socio-economic fabric is frayed, by providing aid independently from production...," the statement said.
The EU spends about 321 million euros ($416 million) a year to subsidise tobacco growing, a fraction of the annual EU farm budget, worth around 44 billion euros.
Forrás: Reuters
