The protest occurred as the 15 European agricultural ministers met in emergency session to deal with the deepening crisis around "mad cow" disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The farmers wore T-shirts reading, in the Flemish language, "We are being led to slaughter."

The French borders with Belgium and Spain were closed by coordinated actions of farmers' organizations from the three countries. Five hundred French farmers closed the Pont d'Europe in Strasbourg, the bridge that is the principal link between France and Germany.

According to French agricultural minister Jean Glavany, some 35-40,000 cattle producers in France alone risk losing their farms if immediate aid is not provided. Sales of beef have plummeted in Europe in the wake of the spread of BSE, dropping 50 percent in Germany and more than 25 percent in France. Prices have dropped proportionally in the two countries, leaving cattle producers, most of whom are small family farmers, in desperate conditions.

Luc Guyau, president of the National Federation of Agricultural Producers Unions (FNSEA), the main French farmers organization, warned, "If we do not receive immediate aid, we will no longer be able to control our troops."

Claiming that the annual budget has already been used up by the measures adopted in early December when the BSE crisis broke out, the European agricultural ministers were unable to make any decisions at the meeting on aiding the farmers. Totally paralyzed by an acrimonious debate between officials from France and Germany, the meeting ended with one of the most serious failures of the European Common Agricultural Policy since its inception 40 years ago.

As the meeting ended, the French agricultural minister announced that Paris would adopt its own national policy of aid to cattle farmers. The Common Agricultural Policy had previously forbidden such direct national aid. Glavany invoked Article 87 of the European Treaty, never before used in an agricultural question, which allows temporary national direct aid "in cases of natural calamities and other extraordinary events."

One anonymous European official complained that farmers in Belgium and Luxembourg were demanding that their governments "follow the French example" and provide direct aid to farmers as well. This would lead to a "creeping re-nationalization" of European agricultural policies, he warned.

At the heart of the failure of the European Union to meet the challenge posed by the outbreak of BSE is the growing tension in the French-German alliance, which has been at the center of the European Union since its inception. France has dominated European agricultural policy since the Treaty of Rome was adopted in 1957. Germany has been the major contributor to the agricultural fund that France has used to modernize its agriculture.

Today France is the second largest agricultural exporter in the world, and its 30 million hectares (one hectare = 2.47 acres) of cultivated land equal that of Germany and Britain combined. But the Common Agricultural Policy's budget is still 40 billion euros (one euro = US 92 cents), half the amount of the budget of the entire European Union. Germany, saddled with a growing financial burden since reunification 10 years ago, limits its contribution to the Common Agricultural Policy budget. The huge expenses arising from the BSE crisis have brought to a head what the French daily Le Figaro calls "the slow erosion of France's agricultural 'diktat.'"

In December, using the BSE crisis as an excuse, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder named Renate Künast, a member of the German Green party, as the new agricultural minister. Künast immediately proposed doing away with the entire system of European aid, which hundreds of thousands of European farmers depend on. "I'm not afraid of a farmers' revolt," she said. "It's a particularly French problem."

More problems are looming on the horizon with the outbreak of a major epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain. Hundreds of thousands of sheep, cattle, and pigs are being destroyed in a desperate effort to contain the highly infectious disease. The virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease can be carried as much as 37 miles by wind, enough to cross the English Channel to France. If the epidemic starts on the continent it will further fuel conflicts between France and Germany on agricultural and other questions.

On February 28 Glavany officially announced a 1.4 billion franc (one franc = US 14 cents) aid package for French cattle farmers, limited to 30,000 francs maximum for each farmer and financed exclusively by the French government.
 
 
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