DOHA - Let them eat jam tomorrow (Full text of the speech) Doha negotiations 12.09.11 Mr. President, There was a British author called Lewis Carrol who wrote a rather famous book "Alice in Wonderland" and this book had a sequel "Alice though the Looking Glass". In that book there is a passage where the Red Queen tells Alice "The rule is, jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but never jam to-day.' Alice said "But it must happen sometimes that there is "jam to-day",' To which the Queen said and here I paraphrase: "No, there is never jam to-day." Well that is rather like the EU and the successive Doha Rounds. We do never get the jam. There is a reason for this. The Parliament's own Library briefing states that the focus of the Doha Round was to be on Development. Now for most developing countries the critical aspect of the Doha Round is Agriculture. Around three quarters of the population of developing countries reside in rural areas and a majority depend on agriculture. The European Union's Common Agricultural Policy or CAP is equivalent to about 80 billion US dollar per year. This huge subsidy is a distorting factor in world food markets. It erodes the fair operation of the market in food, generates export dumping, and damages the ability of farmers in the developing world to earn a living. I must further point out that a disproportionate amount of the CAP goes on subsidising the growing of sugar beet. This crop grown in the developed world can never be fully competitive without subsidy with sugar cane. It is the continuance of the CAP in its present form which sabotages a proper result from the Doha Round. What then are the prospects for meaningful reform of the CAP? The answer is that there are too many politicians in the European Parliament who are opposed to a meaningful reform of the CAP - it is just not going to happen. No meaningful reform of the CAP means no meaningful outcome to the Doha rounds. Thank you.