EU should spend money on aid, not rich farmers
29th August 2006
Over 500 residents of Southampton Test have signed a petition organised by local MP, Alan Whitehead, calling on the EU to slash the subsidies paid to rich European farmers and spend the money on helping AIDS victims in Africa.
The full text of the petition reads:
“We the undersigned call on the EU Commission to make a proposal to provide an extra €5 billion a year for people living with AIDS in Africa, to be found by cutting the subsidy paid to Europe's richest farmers.”
The signatories from Southampton are being combined with petitions from other MPs across the UK and from Oxfam, which last year put the petition on its website and has so far gathered 7,500 signatories. The petition has been signed by 130 MPs.
Rich European farmers are currently subsidised through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Reforming the CAP has been a key Labour government objective since 1997. Not only does the CAP swallow half of the EU budget, it also punishes developing countries in Africa which rely on selling their farm produce to the West but who are disadvantaged by the CAP
AIDS kills some 6000 people a day in Africa – more than those killed by wars, famines and floods. Many millions of African children are orphans who live with HIV/AIDS. Five billion euros a year would provide anti-retroviral drugs and the healthcare systems to deliver them to help keep millions in Africa alive.
Dr Whitehead said:
“Cutting the CAP and spending the money on AIDS prevention will not only save lives- it will also deliver a monumental blow to the poverty that grips the African continent. This petition is an essential part of the campaign to make trade work in the interests of Africa and to rid the continent of the spectre of AIDS for good.”
More information
- According to the WHO, 24.5 million people in Sub Saharan Africa are infected with the AIDS virus.
- British Government policy achievements on fighting poverty in Africa since the Gleneagles summit in 2005:
- The Africa Commission has been established
- UK aid to Africa has been increased to £1 billion in 2005/6
- The UK will spend at least £1.5 billion on HIV/AIDS over the next 3 years and we achieved agreement amongst the G8 nations that there should be as close to possible to universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS by 2010
- The government used the UK presidency of the EU to ensure that the EU focused on maintaining HIV prevention. We achieved a commitment from EU ministers to increased prevention by issuing a statement on a vision for an AIDS free generation – the first pan-European pledge of its kind.