EC FARM MINISTERS DISAGREE ON DIRECT INCOME AIDS
Plans to provide direct income
aids for European Community (EC) small farmers to help them
face deep cuts in guaranteed crop prices received a mixed
reception from EC agriculture ministers, EC officials said.
    The plans were discussed at an informal meeting of the
ministers hosted in the village of Genval by the Council of
Ministers' current chairman, Belgium's Paul de Keersmaeker.
    The EC Executive Commission has proposed that the richer
member states be allowed to make direct payments to their
farmers in special difficulties, while the EC itself would
finance a similar scheme in the poorer EC countries.
    However, EC officials said only the Netherlands and
Luxembourg supported this idea at today's meeting, and France,
Denmark and Belgium showed marked hostility to it.
    French minister Francois Guillaume told reporters, "Farmers
should not become recipients of public assistance -- their
survival should be assured by price mechanisms and the market."
    The officials said the ministers had not sought to resolve
their more urgent differences over guaranteed farm prices for
1987/88 at this meeting.
    The ministers will resume talks on the price fixing issue
in Luxembourg on June 15.
 Reuter
