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Europe can't keep its hypocrisies straight
Kelly McParland
Someone should invent a word that applies when one set of hypocritical principles collides with a second set of equally hypocritical standards, creating a conflict of hypocrisies.
It could be used a lot in political circles, especially in Brussels, home to the gargantuan bureaucratic grotesquery known as the European government. The EU specializes in demanding standards for others that it can't meet itself, and in exempting itself from practices considered reasonable for others. That's how you get a country like Germany (where people go to work and pay their taxes) sitting cheek-by-jowl with a country like Greece (where they don't), pretending to be partners in a gathering of equals. Yet another example: Among the ranks of cheerleaders urging the world on to greater efforts in greenifying the planet, the EU takes pride of place. Nothing pleases EU officials more than puffing out their chests while declaiming their devotion to the highest standards of environmental correctness. The EU also likes to lecture other countries on its commitment to free trade, denouncing subsidies and perceived barriers to unfettered commerce wherever it finds them.
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Unfortunately, its position is undermined by the fact it is one of the world's biggest subsidizers. The bloc spends $77 billion a year on farm subsidies (which it denounces elsewhere), the biggest item on its budget.
And the farmers who benefit from the subsidies aren't keen on losing them. So they're putting up a big fuss over an effort to tie a portion of future payments to progress on the green front. According to the Financial Times , The EU agriculture commissioner wants to link 30% of the subsidies to "crop diversification, protecting grazing land and – most controversially – setting aside 7 per cent of each farm's land for ecological purposes."
The farmers aren't buying it. They claim the plan would push up costs. One study suggested the increase could reach $7 billion a year. That could mean even more subsidies were needed to pay for the added expenses forced on farmers by politicians eager to do some more international preening, even though the enviro groups (as usual) say the new measures are just window-dressing anyway and don't go far enough.
Hypocrisy meets hypocrisy. Which lousy policy will win? Stay tuned.