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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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EU to End Tobacco Subsidies by 2010 [04/22-5]
Excerpts from: EU to Dismantle Protections for Olive Oil, Tobacco, Cotton
By Peter McGill Bloomberg.com [04/21/04]
European Union governments agreed to start dismantling protections of olive oil, tobacco, cotton and hops in 2006, brushing aside protests from Spain, the world's biggest producer of olive oil.
Farm ministers from the EU's 15 member states had wanted to reach an accord on changes to subsidies for the products, which cost taxpayers 4.2 billion euros ($5 billion) a year, before 10 countries join the bloc next month.
The EU already had broken the link between subsidies and farm production for most other crops in an attempt to reduce surpluses. The sugar market is the only area still untouched by changes pushed by Franz Fischler, the EU commissioner for agriculture, rural development and fisheries.
The U.K. and other northern European governments also had criticized EU aid to tobacco planters, saying it encouraged smoking. Payments will be fully decoupled from production by 2010, with half of the money allocated to the sector going toward finding new jobs for growers.
In the four years before then, at least 40 percent of the aid will be detached from production levels. The changes will mostly affect Greece and Italy, which grow more than three-quarters of the EU's raw tobacco.
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