Sweet News

Today proposals will be unveiled to cut the EU’s support price for sugar. Its sure to be a half measure, with contradictory proposals but its better than nothing.

Mariann Fischer Boel, the European Union's agriculture commissioner, will propose today the first substantial reduction in the EU's sugar price support mechanism since its launch in 1968.

I wasn’t even born then. It shows how difficult it is to take away a bribe once it has been given. Especially when this bribe keeps many in a job that would otherwise not exist.

Brussels currently buys sugar from European producers at €632 ($767, £420) per tonne, about three times the world market price.

The cut is to be 39% which would bring the price down to about €380 or 80% above world prices. That still leaves 80% to cut. Unfortunately there are poor countries with preferred access to EU markets, who will lose out. However rather than keep them as sugar junkies, they would be far better off if we helped them to develop alternatives.